Robert James Waller: A Thousand Country Roads

By JAN TRELIVING-BROWN

Fans have for 10 years begged reclusive author Robert James Waller to write an epilogue to bestseller The Bridges Of Madison County. Readers had feasted on the passionate four-day affair between itinerant photographer Robert Kincaid and Iowa farmer's wife Francesca Johnson. What became of the lovers? We had to know.


A Thousand Country Roads is petite and tastefully presented with rose-gold embossing. It feels nice and firm and while I know I'm not meant to, I enjoy using the glossy flyleaf as an illicit bookmark.


You'll soon remember the distinctive cadence of predecessor Bridges because here it is again as the series of ardent encounters Robert enjoyed with his beloved Francesca is recalled. Her years of suppressed wanting, his years of the same, the two of them coming at each other over and over while the candles dripped and the rains came and left and a tentative dawn rolled over the south Iowa countryside.


Once I'm over the feeling that the book has been written with a movie in mind, I'm away. I'm lost in Oregon, North Carolina, the Dakotas and I'm suddenly back under Roseman Bridge in Madison County, Iowa.


Robert is on a pilgrimage to lay to rest a few ghosts. With faithful dog Highway and the old truck Harry, he's on the road again. He has never stopped loving Francesca. She has never stopped loving him.


Someone Robert doesn't know is looking for him. The stranger has a list of identifying features he has cobbled together from acquaintances: Robert Kincaid. Photographer. Freelance for magazines. Marines/World War II. Bracelet. Suspenders. Age 32 in 1945. Ariel Four bike. Well-travelled.


Mid-journey, Robert has a chance encounter with old flame Wynn McMillan. They call up tender memories of a dalliance that was little more than a one-night-lie on the beach when she played Schubert for a man just returned from the wars.


Wynn shares a shocking revelation about that brief encounter and Robert's ship has been capsized, never to right itself again. The stranger closes in.


In his author's note, Robert James Waller says he doubts that A Thousand Country Roads will suffice as a stand-alone read without the preceding Bridges Of Madison County. I think it will. While this novel is arguably inferior to Bridges, it is still a winsome tale of love and loss - a well-rounded, much-needed book of closure:

Once more,
for the peregrines,

the strangers,

last cowboys.

And for all the readers
who asked about

the rest of the story.

In all, a book of endings.

- RJW.

Time Warner

$34.95