Life, love, and the truth of a woman’s heart are found in the pages of Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell.
This unique novel follows the life and growth of Mrs. India Bridge in the upper middle-class of Kansas City suburbia between WWI and WWII. In just 254 pages, it reveals to us what it really meant to be a wife and mother during that time. The book begins with Mrs. Bridge’s life running smoothly day-to-day. Her children are young, spritely, and sometimes unconventional in ways that don’t make sense to her. She is a woman of manners and class; a woman devoted to her husband, the stern, and sole breadwinner of the family who is often not around.
Through a series of very short episodes each about a page or two long, Mrs. Bridge carries on her life running errands, gossiping with the other housewives, hosting dinner parties, and being painfully persistent trying to keep her children on the straight and narrow path which she herself knows so well.
But as time goes on, Mrs. Bridge’s perfect, well-mannered life starts to fray. Her children eventually move away to unexpected places and sometimes defy her. Her friends reveal themselves to be less put together than she assumed. And she comes to the realization that her life is only given meaning through the mindless tasks of mothering, schmoozing, and being “the perfect wife” to a husband who is rarely there.
This book takes a hard look on this point in American history, and makes us ask, “Is life really worth it when it is being lived so monotonously?” Toward the end of the book, Mrs. Bridge often finds herself staring into the dead of night, contemplating her role and purpose, as so many things, she identified with now seem frivolous or have disappeared completely.
There is a moment of clarity when Mrs. Bridge lay in bed recalling a book she had left on the mantle long ago, “which observed that some people go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last without ever having been made to see all it may contain,” which she then had to put down. This episode ends by saying: “She wondered what had interfered, where she had gone, and why she had never returned.”
This perfectly represents the inner turmoil Mrs. Bridge feels about her life at this point in time.
This novel also ironically points out the almost-nonexistent presence of her husband, Mr. Bridge, and how two people can be an integral part of each other’s lives without hardly being in each other’s lives at all. The way that Mrs. Bridge lives entirely for her husband without really living with her husband speaks volumes to the societal norm of the time of how the wives served the purpose of their family and practically nothing else.
There is even a scene where the Bridges are at a country club having dinner, and there is suddenly news of a tornado coming toward them. Mr. Bridge refuses to budge from his seat and takes his sweet time finishing his dinner, regardless of the fact that everyone else has retreated to the basement for safety. Even more shocking, is while she feels a bit uneasy about the situation, Mrs. Bridge simply sits quietly next to her husband carrying out her dreadful, dutiful role and neglecting her own safety.
This is one of many moments in this chronicle of Mrs. Bridge’s life where she has been subject to the influence of her husband, and nothing else. This book drives its reader forward at every page turn since each one is a new episode and new short story all together. It takes you on a trip to a time when upper middle-class citizens ruled by bumming smokes and keeping secrets. When “marriage” meant “money”, and the only known purpose a woman had was found in the bottom of the cocktail she served. 
Mrs. Bridge explores the inner-workings of a woman’s heart during this time, and brings it into full, colorful understanding in a story that is quietly heartbreaking and thought provoking.

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Evan S. Connell’s 1959 novel makes a strong statement about connectivity in relationships. (Via Creative Commons)