THE BRIDGE of SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
Originally published in 1927. Winner of the 1928 Pulitzer Prize. This book has been on my To-Be-Read list since I was in high school. One of my English teachers back in high school used to talk about this book quite a lot and I finally got around to reading it. Synopsis: The setting is Peru, back when Spain held it as a colony. Outside of Lima in the Andes Mountains there is a magnificent rope bridge for pedestrians. Baggage and animals take a long trail they take down to the river below and they cross a traditional bridge that takes a lot longer. One day the rope bridge breaks and several people fall to their deaths. A monk is approaching the rope bridge and sees it break and everyone fall to their deaths. He decides to investigate the lives of each person who fell. He wants to see if there is something in common - perhaps they were all adulterers or thieves or the like? What follows are elaborate character sketches for each of the victims all ending with them walking across the br