On one of my infrequent trips back to the US in the early 1990's for a friend's wedding, I stayed with my friend Alexandra in Chicago for a few days. Back in college she promised to always  have pesto in the fridge for me if I should come to visit, and I promised something I can't remember - maybe matzo ball soup. Even if my memory is dim, her's was not, and she was true to her word. One day she handed me a book she said I had to read, The Bridges of Madison County. She said that one of the main characters, Robert Kincaid, a roamer and photographer for National Geographic, reminded her of me. I read it straight through in a couple of hours. Two things stood out immediately besides the fine writing. I am not sure what in Kincaid's character reminded her of me, but I am flattered to be thought of in that way. Second, one of the reasons Francesca falls in love with Kincaid is that he relates he was once in her hometown of Bari, Italy. He was on his way somewhere else, saw the town from the train and just got off. This freedom stunned Francesca, now a housewife in rural Iowa. What stunned me and made me laugh out loud was the thought of Bari as beautiful. I was there once, catching a hydrofoil ferry (run by Norwegians for some reason) to Durress, Albania and I thought it was a pit! Probably a lot had changed in 60 years. In any case, it is a brilliant book. After a lot of delays, I finally settled in to read the epilogue last night. A Thousand Country Roads finds the characters 16 years the older. It could have been a very sad book, as one suspects from the opening few pages; or it could have been a very happy book with the two lovers finding each other again and living happily ever after. But, in fact author Robert James Waller settles for a more introspective and realistic book (with the exception of a few silly coincidences). The prose is once again descriptively excellent as the story keeps us interested in what happens next. A great improvement on Waller's Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend, and Border Music. One thought from the book I would like to share:
"Reality is one thing, but a slow whittling down of dreams is next door to dying slow."