<DIV>In <I>Mrs. Bridge</I>, Evan S. Connell, a consummate storyteller, artfully crafts a portrait using the finest of details in everyday events and confrontations. With a surgeon&#8217;s skill, Connell cuts away the middle-class security blanket of uniformity to expose the arrested development underneath&#8212;the entropy of time and relationships lead Mrs. Bridge's three children and husband to recede into a remote silence, and she herself drifts further into doubt and confusion. The raised evening newspaper becomes almost a fire screen to deflect any possible spark of conversation. The novel is comprised of vignettes, images, fragments of conversations, events&#8212;all building powerfully toward the completed group portrait of a family, closely knit on the surface but deeply divided by loneliness, boredom, misunderstandings, isolation, sexual longing, and terminal isolation. In this special fiftieth anniversary edition, we are reminded once again why <I>Mrs. Bridge</I> has been hailed by readers and critics alike as one of the greatest novels in American literature.</DIV>