The Bridge of San Luis Rey

The story centers on a fictional event that happened in Peru on the road between Lima and Cuzco at noon on Friday July the twentieth 1714. A rope bridge woven by the Inca a century earlier collapsed at that particular moment while five people were crossing it sending them falling from a great height to their deaths in the river below. The collapse was witnessed by Brother Juniper a Franciscan friar who was on his way to cross the bridge himself. A deeply pious man who seeks to provide some sort of empirical evidence that might prove to the world Gods Divine Providence he sets out to interview everyone he can find who knew the five victims. Over the course of six years he compiles a huge book of all of the evidence he gathers to show that the beginning and end of a person is all part of Gods plan for that person. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928 and was the best-selling work of fiction that year.