Alexander's Bridge

A great bridge-builder, a Boston marriage, a first love found again in London, and a cantilever span over the St Lawrence that his firm has been asked to build cheaper than it can safely be built. Cather moved to the Nebraska prairie at nine and made the homesteaders her subject; this was her first novel, and she later half-disowned it as an imitation of Henry James — which is unfair, because the bridge is entirely hers.