The Bridges of Madison County

The Bridges of Madison County

First edition
Author	Robert James Waller
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Warner Books, Inc.
Publication date	1992
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	192 pp
ISBN	0-446-51652-X
OCLC	24246926
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 20
LC Class	PS3573.A4347 B75 1992
Followed by	A Thousand Country Roads

The Bridges of Madison County is a 1992 best-selling novel by Robert James Waller that tells the story of a married but lonely Italian woman living in 1960s Madison County, Iowa. She engages in an affair with a National Geographic photographer from Bellingham, Washington, who is visiting Madison County to create a photographic essay on the covered bridges in the area. The novel is presented as a novelization of a true story, but it is in fact entirely fictional. However, the author has stated in an interview that there are strong similarities between the main character and himself.^[1]

The novel is one of the bestselling books of the 20th century, with 50 million copies sold worldwide. It has also been adapted into a feature film in 1995 and a musical in 2013.

Publication history

It was originally published in the UK under the title Love in Black and White.^[2][3]

A sequel entitled A Thousand Country Roads was published in 2002. It tells the remainder of the two main characters' story after their four-day affair. They never meet again, but their lives are interlocked until death.

In 2005, the trilogy was completed with High Plains Tango, which came about when Waller was writing A Thousand Country Roads and he realized he had two novels' worth of material. "High Plains Tango picks up the story of itinerant master carpenter Carlisle McMillan, Robert Kincaid's illegitimate son, who settles in Salamander, S.D. There his life becomes intertwined with two very different women and almost overrun by the threats of eminent domain."^[4]

Reception

The San Francisco Chronicle praised the novel as "lyrical..sensuous and sensitive..a tale of lasting love", while Entertainment Weekly called it "a short, poignant story, moving precisely because it has the ragged edges of reality".^[5]

Other reviewers criticized the novel as sentimental slush: featuring "contrived, unrealistic dialog", and a "trite" storyline.^[6]

The book debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in August 1992, and slowly climbed to number 1,^[7] and remained on the list for over three years (164 consecutive weeks), through October 8, 1995.^[8]

Film adaptation

The Bridges of Madison County was made into a 1995 film of the same name, adapted by Richard LaGravenese and directed by Clint Eastwood. It stars Eastwood and Meryl Streep.

Musical adaptation

The Bridges of Madison County^[9] was adapted into a Tony Award-winning^[10][11] musical with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown and the book by Marsha Norman. The musical premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival on August 1, 2013. Directed by Bartlett Sher, the cast featured Elena Shaddow as Francesca and Steven Pasquale.^[12] The musical began previews on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on January 17, 2014 and officially opened on February 20, 2014 with Kelli O'Hara as Francesca and Steven Pasquale as Robert Kincaid. Directed by Bartlett Sher, the sets are by Michael Yeargan, costumes by Catherine Zuber, and lighting by Donald Holder.^[13][14][15] Hunter Foster played the role of Bud Johnson, the husband of Francesca.^[16]

References

External links

• Study of reader response to the novel
• 20th-Century American Bestsellers entry
• Analysis of The Bridges of Madison County on Lit React