A bridge of leaves

the long version

A Bridge of Leaves, originally published in 1961, is about the fragile extension of the self to others. It is also about the passage out of the warm embrace of childhood and adolescence to the adult world and quandaries of friendship, love, death, and madness. The narrator, David, recounts his efforts to reach and understand the mysterious others who park his own path out of the confines of the self in the crossing to maturity. We meet the grandmother, the grandfather, and a dead twin in the early years, his friend Phil, and his love Laura. These become the fragile bridges that lead to another mysterious other who waits on the other side: himself.