My book selection for April is as follows: Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell. I think this book, along with his Mr. Bridge , are two underrated American Classics.
The product description for Mrs. Bridge reads: “Best-selling author Evan S. Connell is expert at sketching the banalities and trivialities of middle-class values, customs, and habits.
Like Mr. Bridge, its counterpart, Mrs. Bridge is comprised of over one hundred titled chapters, containing vignettes, an image, a fragment of conversation, an event—all building powerfully toward the completed group portrait of a family, closely knit on the surface but deeply divided beneath by loneliness, boredom, misunderstandings, isolation, sexual longing, and terminal alienation.
With a surgeon’s skill Connell cuts away the middle-class security blanket of uniformity to expose the arrested development beneath. Mrs. Bridge recedes more and more into doubt and confusion as her three children and husband become more remote and silent. The raised evening newspaper becomes almost a fire screen to deflect any possible spark of conversation. A fly caught unawares in amber for eternity is no more immobilized and exposed than Mrs. Bridge, trapped in her garage as her novel ends.”
You can read a great review of the novel here . The review notes:
“That said, both are great books. Period. If you want character development, poetic moments, insight, a portrait of a certain time and place, these two books cannot be beat. The Bridges are petty, refined, bigoted, caring, aloof, devoted, rich, yet simple people. In a sense it is almost impossible to review one without the other. Significantly, both books start off with the wooing and marriage of both. It is as if the books’ titles signify not only who are the main characters, but what they are. Both characters define themselves by their spouse, and, de facto, all we know, or need to know, about them revolves around their married personae. The only thing more important to the couple than each other seems to be what others think of them.”
Visit Amazon for more details. This version is published by Counterpoint. Both Mr. & Mrs. Bridge are worth the read, though I recommend Mrs. Bridge first.
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