Birth of a Bridge

Birth of a Bridge unwinds in cascades of detail, lush and reveling in technical specificity. The object of De Kerangal’s fastidious attention: a 6,200-foot long, 4,100-foot high suspension bridge crafted out of steel and concrete, transforming the fictional town of Coca in the late 2000s into an economic powerhouse of global import rivaling its coastal counterparts. Or that’s the business pitch, at least. Georges Diderot, the boss, is ironclad in his determination to see it through. A perpetual wanderer, traipsing across the globe from one construction project to the next, he lives off this thrill alone and craves the human connection that he has sacrificed. But the barriers he confronts are numerous and varied: sabotage and endangered birds; hand-to-hand combat; the sparks of unionization. De Kerangal is as attuned to the violence of industrialization as she is to its spectacle, and these scintillating events arise out of her true focus: an honest portraiture of the international cast of workers committed to realizing this epic monument. A short man making up for his size by working as a tower crane operator, a woman whose passion for concrete overrules all else. And Katherine Thoreau, a mother and wife for whom the bridge is a necessary escape and Diderot its principal intrigue. Birth of a Bridge showcases the dexterity which animates all of de Kerangal’s work, especially when her characters are met with the unpredictability of their own desires.