A Thousand Country Roads: An Epilogue to The Bridges of Madison County

By Robert James Waller (John M. Hardy Publishing, 2002)

Genre: Fiction

Pages: 181

Via: Library Book Sale

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner…

A professional photographer who’s spent his entire life on the road “chasing good light” all over the world, Robert Kincaid* is reclusive and reserved. But he has his memories. Especially memories of a lonely farm wife he met sixteen years ago at a bridge in Madison County, Iowa.

Fast forward to 1981. Robert Kincaid of Bellingham, Washington is now sixty-eight years old. His best friends are a ’54 Chevy pickup truck named “Harry” and a golden retriever named “Highway.” As the years pile up, memories of four summer days in Iowa that had to last a lifetime begin to swirl. Robert decides to find them.

Bittersweet

Elegiac, bittersweet, and luminescent,A Thousand Country Roads is a story of near-misses. Maybes. And might-have-beens. It’s a story of dreams and disappointments.

Searching

Told in Waller’s trademark lilting prose, A Thousand is a story about two soulmates searching for each other like two ships that pass in the night. It’s a lyrical journey through lonely echoes of yesteryear and sighs of what was and what was not. And Autumn Leaves.

Chasing

Chasing memories, Robert loads up Harry and Highway and travels coast-hugging roads in search of peace and serenity, much like he did after getting out of the Marines post WWII. It was 1945. He met Wynn McMillan while riding his motorcycle through Big Sur.

“As good as that moment was, Robert Kincaid knew it could not be suspended in aspic, carried forward unchanged. And there was a certain restlessness within him. A second lifetime stretched before him, and he was impatient to get on with it.”

We later find out that Carlisle was the result of Robert’s meet-up with Wynn in 1945. Carlisle, now age 36, has never known his father. Wynn can’t remember Robert’s last name. Carlisle is a carpenter working on restoring an old house in South Dakota. Between saw dust and door frames and levels, Carlisle starts wondering about the father he never knew. And starts looking.

“Rain dripped from the bridge’s eaves and through holes in the roof where shingling had long since peeled away. He leaned against a support post and simply let all the feelings, as they had been sixteen years ago and were now, come over him. This, he knew, was a farewell, a letting go and closing down, his way of saying goodbye to Francesca Johnson.”

Meanwhile, Back in Iowa…

Meanwhile, memories of Robert Kincaid haunt Francesca Johnson of Madison County even after her good, kind husband has passed away. Neither Robert nor Francesca ever reached out to each other following their 1965 tryst. They had their reasons. Both chose to live with their memories. But now, after Richard’s death and her grown children flying the coop, Francesca takes daily walks to the Roseman Bridge and wonders if maybe, just maybe…?

Re-Wrote

I re-wrote this review several times. At first, I disliked the addition of Wynn McMillan and her son Carlisle. They just didn’t seem to fit. In fact, they seemed manufactured. Contrived. Intruders on a story that should’ve focused on what happened with Francesca and Robert. But after Francesca and Robert’s near-miss on the Roseman Bridge, I realized that these two additional characters round out the story, particularly Carlisle. They give readers a sense of closure. Tie up some loose ends. Also, without Wynn and Carlisle, A Thousand Country Roads would be crushingly heartbreaking to the point of mawkish. So they give us some hope. And good light.

“One great love in a single lifetime was enough for anyone.”

Purpose

Indeed, Carlisle – and to a lesser degree, Wynn – serve an important purpose in this book. They fill in some blanks in the Bridges story, opening a window into Robert Kincaid’s life and experiences pre-Francesca. Waller uses Wynn and Carlisle as a story arc into Kincaid’s back story, which includes a stint in the Marines as a combat photographer during WWII. It’s a little slow in places. Like the middle. So although it’s a bit uneven in places, the story helps readers understand the reticent, reclusive Kincaid and thus offers some crucial groundwork for The Bridges of Madison County.

“A great love lost, a son found.”

As with Bridges, A Thousand Country Roads isn’t something you can reduce into a few paragraphs in a book review. Or an academic exercise in literary critique. Reading both novels is an experience. And while A Thousand can be read as a stand-alone, you really need to read it after finishing Bridges.

“… the floor swept clean behind me, all traces gone, nothing left.”

Finally, A Thousand Country Roads is the kind of book that makes you want to sigh. Take another sip of your hot cuppa. Pet your good dog. And hug your loved ones while you can. 

Our Rating: 3.5

*Robert Kincaid is played by Clint Eastwood in the movie, opposite Meryl Streep as Francesca Johnson. But I always see Sam Elliot in the Kincaid role. You?