The Bridges of Madison County

The Bridges of Madison County is a 1992 best-selling novel by Robert James Waller that tells the story of a married but lonely Italian woman living in 1960s Madison County, Iowa. She engages in an affair with a National Geographic photographer fromBellingham, Washington, who is visiting Madison County to create a photographic essay on the covered bridges in the area. The novel is presented as a novelization of a true story, but it is in fact entirely fictional. However, the author has stated in an interview that there are strong similarities between the main character and himself.^[1]

                       

The novel is one of the bestselling books of the 20th century, with 50 million copies sold worldwide. It has also been adapted into afeature film in 1995 and a musical in 2013.