It is a pitifrul fact that only four members have this book. Steve was called "the last English purist writer " alive and he taught me much while working with him at UCF. I doubt I shall ever use the word "got" unless it is dialogue for a charcter or used as verb for goat breeding. Steve's intelligence shines through his prose and that may be what killed him from goinh (not getting) to the top of the literary ladder. But it is the world's loss, because if you will slow down and take the time to READ, REALLY READ, the work, it will change you, maybe forever. This story has an American engineer coming to a foreign country (never identified, but obsiously one of the guanas where Steve lived forf awhile) to build a bridge. There are two stories (at least) intertwined: that of the pride of bridge-building (and nation-building) and the tgearing apart of the engineer's world view. He finally becomes "natural" or "native" enough tyo get an erection and pefform, then finds out he received syphilis from the encounter. The last few chapters simply rip; his thinking apart, with the help of a native engineer named Phillips, and he goes home a wiser, if not sadder, man. ( )