Mr Bridge

The companion novel to Mrs Bridge, this is a pitch-perfect portrayal of marriage and family life and a poignant dissection of the unexamined life. Walter Bridge, husband to India and father to three, is a successful lawyer in a Kansas suburb.

The daily dramas of his life only serve to illuminate his narrow prejudices and complacent outlook, yet he is also troubled by existential doubts, dark undercurrents of desire and a yearning for something forever out of his reach.

In Mr Bridge, Evan S. Connell gives us a moving, satirical and poetic portrayal of a man who cannot escape his limitations and of a couple growing old together but unable, ultimately, to connect. The companion novel, Mrs Bridge, telling the story from the other side of the marriage, is published in Penguin Modern Classics. 'With a delicate and subtle irony, Mr Connell shows us, first from her, then from his point of view, the little daily dramas of this ordinary family.

It is very, very funny, often moving and sad, and written with an uncompromising realism that one rarely comes across.

To me the Bridges were a revelation: I cannot recommend them too highly' Daily Telegraph