The most understated novel you're likely to read: Mrs. Bridge

"Mrs. Bridge" is an entirely unconventional novel. I can imagine that some would finish, shrug, think "Is that all there is?" I was quite moved by it, found it very evocative and disturbing. Even S. Connell tells the entire life story, or let's say spans the entire life, of Mrs. Bridge through about 100 concise anecdotes, each a short, titled chapter, a vignette. Some are dramatic - an armed robbery at a cocktail party - some very mundane. A few, but very few, are linked in sequence (the trip to Europe). There's only a whisper of a plot. Over time, we her children grow and move along with their lives, away, her husband and various friends die. Connell deals with the tragic and severe emotions through indirection, obliquely: you don't actually see her husband's death or her friend's death by suicide. You see only Mrs. Bridge's reaction. And she is a very uptight society matron of 1930s Kansas City. She plays by the rules, she doesn't like anything unconventional - yet there's a little bit of a yearning, for something more, for some freedom. Of course it's written in 1959, so that perspective allows Connell to conceive of Mrs. Bridge with a shrewd irony. She was already quaint, a throwback, at the time he created her. He leaves readers with lots of questions: was she happy? was it a good life? Some may see it as a flaw that Connell does not resolve the questions. To say this is an understated novel is itself an understatement. But the ambiguity and lack of resolution are the strengths as well; it's what in McLuhan lingo would be a "cool" novel - requiring our active engagement to heat it up.