Title: Second Bridge
Author: Robert R. Franson
Publisher: Rainbow Trout Press
Publication Date: 2003
Type: Paperback
Condition: Near Fine
Jacket condition: None as issued
Notes: Excellent copy, nearly new. Pristine, unmarked text - no creased corners. Binding firm and square. Cover is glossy with a couple faint surface flaws and a hint of edge wear. Overall looks very good. No creases to spine or cover.
About the Book
Second Bridge is a coming-of-age story of three boys discovering life's realities in the summer of 1936, a Great Depression year. In 1936, despairing farmers and businessmen in Cottonwood City are barely handing on, terror and fear etched in their faces. A merciless sun burns life from corn fields, hordes of grasshoppers cloud the sky to descend and strip fields to stubble, and swirling winds seem to be blowing the world away. The town is almost equally divided between Swedish Lutherans and Czech Catholics, distrustful of each other because of religious and ethnic beliefs. As for Second Bridge, it is a railroad trestle, meadow and stream, a place where boys find surcease from parental demands and where courage and strength dominate life. Eric has fallen for Kate, a classmate who has the qualities he lacks: ambition, poise, openness - and she encourages him to overcome a crippling shyness. They ponder the mores of the time: an unmarried woman who becomes pregnant leaves town to hide; divorce is almost unknown and chastity is prized. Enthusiasm for Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal wins over many Nebraskans, but others fear the NRA and even the CCC are carrying the nation to ruin. The summer of 1936 was part of a frightening era that devastated the nation like few times in history.
