Birth of a Bridge

October 13, 2014
French novelist de Kerangal creates a modern saga chronicling the construction of a colossal bridge. The original edition won both the 2010 Prix Médicis and the 2010 Prix Franz Hessel. Beginning with an international consortium winning the tender and hundreds of peopleâproject managers, engineers, crane operators, truck driversâconverging on a small town in California, the novel weaves their individual stories into one grand narrative. While the bridge undoubtedly will bring prosperity to the town, the native groups and the as-yet unspoiled land on the far side of the river will be forever compromised. Opposition groups form, progress is threatened. And progress itself is an ambiguous element in the novel, often taking the form of political corruption. But there is also lyricism and beauty to be found through each character's obsessive outlook on the land and the bridge. Moore (winner of the PEN America Translation Award) stays true to de Kerangal's unique prose, which flows from the mythic to the mundane. Her translation is clear and unadorned. The story told through its varied cast of characters, alternating from the grandiose to the intimate, is one that will stay with readers long after the book is closed and the bridge is built.

August 15, 2014
Originally published in French in 2010, this novel follows the conception and building of a bridge in the timeless, almost mythical Coca, California.It's fitting that the epigraph comes from Jorge Luis Borges, for the world de Kerangal creates has a surreal Borges-ean feel to it. The central character is the bridge itself, though it's surrounded by humans of various shapes and statures. The project manager is Georges Diderot, outsized in body and in reputation, who has the almost unimaginably complex job of coordinating the job with the personalities of the workers. Central among these is Summer Diamantis, aka "Miss Concrete," who's in charge of this central aspect of the civil engineering. She's used to being a pioneer in her field and has ventured into the solid world of shaping concrete in part to escape her past. We also meet Sanche Alphonse Cameron, the chief crane operator, whose base of operations is a 6-foot-square box 150 feet above the ground. (Although this is a tight space, before the novel ends, he succeeds in having a sexual tryst there.) John Johnson, also known as The Boa, is Coca's ambitious mayor, who has decided that the old Golden Bridge will just no longer suffice, for he needs to make a name for himself. De Kerangal delights in naming her characters playfully and philosophically, so we also meet worker Kate Thoreau, architect Ralph Waldo and minor character Verlaine. Despite obstacles like a fatal accident and the threat of a work stoppage, the bridge does eventually get built. The whole narrative unfolds in a dreamlike manner, and Moore's translation is elegant and sensitively attuned to the author's wordplay and neologisms.

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December 1, 2014

If you're not so intrigued by the idea of a book about the engineers, designers, and machinery operators building a bridge in a Macondo-like town in California, think again. In precise, limpid, stringently straightforward language, de Kerangal shows us why we build, what it's like, and what the impact is on our social fabric. Diamond miners "dig in the glebe, scratch the scree, and sifts the guts, keep watch for the marvellous sparkle," says the author, and she's found it. Winner of the 2012 Medicis Prize.

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