Robert James Waller

Robert James Waller (born August 1, 1939, Charles City, Iowa, U.S.—died March 10, 2017, Fredericksburg, Texas) was an American author who wrote the phenomenally popular romance novel The Bridges of Madison County (1991), which was the basis for the blockbuster 1995 movie of the same title, starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep.

Waller grew up in the small Iowa town of Rockford. He earned (1962) a bachelor’s degree in business education and (1964) a master’s degree in education from the State College of Iowa (now the University of Northern Iowa). He then attended Indiana University (Ph.D., 1968). He joined the faculty of the University of Northern Iowa in 1968, where he taught economics, applied math, and management and served (1980–86) as dean of the university’s business school. In the early 1980s he began writing travel, nature, and personal essays for The Des Moines Register. Collections of those writings were published as Just Beyond the Firelight: Stories and Essays (1988) and One Good Road Is Enough (1990). He grew dissatisfied with his career over time, and in 1989 he took an unpaid leave of absence. Two years later he produced a study for the state, Iowa: Perspectives on Today and Tomorrow.

While photographing covered bridges in Iowa’s Madison County, Waller was suddenly struck with inspiration, and over a period of less than two weeks he penned The Bridges of Madison County. Set in the mid-1960s, it told the story of a middle-aged Italian war bride and farm wife, Francesca, whose passion is ignited by an itinerant photographer, Robert Kincaid. The pair have an intense four-day affair before she chooses duty to her family over the pursuit of a new life with Kincaid. Critics generally panned the book, but it struck a note with many readers (among them Oprah Winfrey), and it became a best seller in 1992, remaining at or close to the top of the list for a year and staying on The New York Times best-seller list for three years. The book and movie made Madison County a tourist destination and the covered bridges a popular wedding venue.

Waller’s second novel, Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend (1993), was also a best seller. His later novels, romances all, included Puerto Vallarta Squeeze: The Run for el Norte (1995) and Border Music (1995). The characters of Waller’s first novel were revisited in A Thousand Country Roads: An Epilogue to The Bridges of Madison County (2002) and High Plains Tango (2005). His final work, The Long Night of Winchell Dear (2006) was a Western thriller.