The Bridge by Gay Talese

The Bridge, by Gay Talese, is a non-fiction book that informs readers of exactly what a large scale construction project means to the people who built it and the people affected by it, specifically, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York city. In The Bridge, Gay Talese started the novel by telling us about a group of people called the boomers. These men were cowboys of large construction projects. They went around from town to town building bridges and buildings in the morning and getting drunk in the bars at night. When their job was finished in one town, they would go on to the next. Talese said "They are cocky men, men of great pride, and at night they brag and build bridges in bars.... "(Talese 2)

Talese went into great detail about how the citizens of the communities were affected by the Verrazano-Narrows; one community greatly appreciated the bridge because they gained property value from it. Another community hated the bridge, because they were forced to leave their homes in order to pave way for the bridge. Talese made sure the reader understood what it took to be a bridgeworker and just how dangerous the job was. He recounted the management style and structure of a large scale project and explained on many facets that it is luck, not skill that makes a great bridge builder. Talese recounts at the end of the story the personality of the men that build large scale construction projects. These men live for the thrills and danger of the job, when the danger is over, many feel so is their job, however there is still months of work left to be done. Talese recounted "Suddenly, the bridge seemed finished. It was not finished, of course - eight months of work remained - but all the heavy steel unites were now linked across the sky, the most dangerous part was done, the challenge was dying, the pessimism and cold wind of the winter had, with spring been swept away by a strange sense of surety that nothing could go wrong..." (Talese 127) After the bridgeworkers finish one job, they go on to the next.