The basis for Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990), starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward “A small masterpiece.” —Joyce Carol Oates The classic novel of a repressed upper–middle–class husband in the American Midwest, written in “spare, whimsical, ironic prose” by a New York Times bestselling and Man Booker Prize winning author (The Washington Post) Walter Bridge is an ambitious Kansas City lawyer who redoubles his efforts and time at the office whenever he senses that his family needs something—even when what they need is more of him and less of his money. Affluence, material assets, and comforts create a cocoon of respectability that cloaks the void within—not the skeleton in the closet but a black hole swallowing the whole household. Together with its companion, Mrs. Bridge, this novel is a classic portrait of a man, a marriage, and the manners and mores of a particular social class in the first half of 20th–century America.