The Other Side of the Bridge

From the author of the beloved #1 national bestseller Crow Lake comes an exceptional new novel of jealously, rivalry and the dangerous power of obsession.

Two brothers, Arthur and Jake Dunn, are the sons of a farmer in the mid-1930s, when life is tough and another world war is looming. Arthur is reticent, solid, dutiful and set to inherit the farm and his father’s character; Jake is younger, attractive, mercurial and dangerous to know – the family misfit. When a beautiful young woman comes into the community, the fragile balance of sibling rivalry tips over the edge.

Then there is Ian, the family’s next generation, and far too sure he knows the difference between right and wrong. By now it is the fifties, and the world has changed – a little, but not enough.

These two generations in the small town of Struan, Ontario, are tragically interlocked, linked by fate and community but separated by a war which devours its young men – its unimaginable horror reaching right into the heart of this remote corner of an empire. With her astonishing ability to turn the ratchet of tension slowly and delicately, Lawson builds their story to a shocking climax. Taut with apprehension, surprising us with moments of tenderness and humour, The Other Side of the Bridge is a compelling, humane and vividly evoked novel with an irresistible emotional undertow.

Arthur found himself staring down at the knife embedded in his foot. There was a surreal split second before the blood started to well up and then up it came, dark and thick as syrup.

Arthur looked at Jake and saw that he was staring at the knife. His expression was one of surprise, and this was something that Arthur wondered about later too. Was Jake surprised because he had never considered the possibility that he might be a less than perfect shot? Did he have that much confidence in himself, that little self-doubt?

Or was he merely surprised at how easy it was to give in to an impulse, and carry through the thought which lay in your mind? Simply to do whatever you wanted to do, and damn the consequences.

–from The Other Side of the Bridge

"In this follow-up to her acclaimed Crow Lake, Lawson again explores the moral quandaries of life in the Canadian North. At the story's poles are Arthur Dunn, a stolid, salt-of-the-earth farmer, and his brother, Jake, a handsome, smooth-talking snake in the grass, whose lifelong mutual resentments and betrayals culminate in a battle over the beautiful Laura, with Arthur, it seems, the unlikely winner. Observing, and eventually intervening in their saga, is Ian, a teenager who goes to work on Arthur's farm to get close to Laura, seeing in her the antithesis of the mother who abandoned his father and him. It's a standard romantic dilemma — who to choose: the goodhearted but dull provider or the seductive but unreliable rogue? — but it gains depth by being set in Lawson's epic narrative of the Northern Ontario town of Struan as it weathers Depression, war and the coming of television. It's a world of pristine landscapes and brutal winters, where beauty and harshness are inextricably intertwined, as when Ian brings home a puppy that gambols adorably about — and then playfully kills Ian's even cuter pet bunny. Lawson's evocative writing untangles her characters' confused impulses toward city and country, love and hate, good and evil." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Some stories are as old as storytelling itself. Transpose them to our own time and their power is unaffected; peel away the particular circumstances and the core remains as fresh as it was in the Fertile Crescent. Slaying a monster, finding a treasure, surviving a natural disaster — all are good tales, but none is so timeless as the story of rivalry between brothers.

That tale is at the... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) heart of Mary Lawson's excellent second novel, 'The Other Side of the Bridge,' which begins in the 1930s. Arthur and Jake Dunn are the sons of a farmer in the Canadian North. Arthur is large, kind, awkward, hardworking and trustworthy. Jake is a smaller fellow, clever and reckless, unscrupulous and charming. Arthur, hopeless in school, will be a good farmer like his father. Jake, adored and protected by his mother, knows how to avoid lifting a finger for anybody but himself.

Experience has made Arthur wary of Jake's gift for getting other people in trouble. The decisive moment happens at the bridge of the novel's title: an accident that nearly kills Jake. Jake brought it on himself, but Arthur feels guilty enough because he might have averted it. Ever after, Jake will make manipulative use of the accident and of Arthur's feelings — until Jake leaves to make his fortune in the city.

We learn of these events as they happen, from Arthur's point of view. His story alternates with another that begins in the late 1950s and is told from the perspective of Ian Christopherson, a high-school student who gets a summer job at Arthur's farm. Ian's father is the town doctor; Ian's mother has left the family for her lover in Toronto. Hurt and disgusted by his mother's departure, Ian develops a crush on Arthur's beautiful wife, even though — or perhaps because — she's the mother of three. Ian's point of view enriches his chapters; he's a good learner, a perceptive observer of this marriage and of Jake's eventual reappearance in Arthur's life. It would be unfair to give away the particulars; I'll just say that the brothers' reunion plays out with tragic inevitability.

Lawson is an Ontario native who now lives in England. As in her first novel, 'Crow Lake,' this story is framed by the severe beauty of northern Canada, which drives away those who regard it as a wasteland but shapes the souls of those who love it. Lawson notes the humble details: horses 'cropping grass with a sound like tearing bedsheets'; timber wolves 'waiting for humans to move on, or die out, so that they could reclaim the land.' Young Ian's best friend Pete, an Indian, loves the land and will choose to stay in the North as a guide: That way, he can steer rich tourists away from ruining the good fishing spots.

Lawson brings to life the social history of this isolated world, as the little town of Struan endures the pain of the Depression and the deprivations of World War II. Arthur tries to enlist but is disqualified by his flat feet; ruefully, dutifully, he stays home to run the farm with the help of two German prisoners of war. Of Arthur's boyhood gang, only one man returns alive — and nearly quadriplegic. Arthur's shadowed 1940s slip into Ian's sunnier 1950s: Elvis on the radio, burgers and fries at red Formica tables, 'easy' girls and 'nice' girls, insistent hormones and looming final exams.

We see Ian struggling to find his own future, rebelling against the foregone conclusion that he'll be the town's third Dr. Christopherson in a row. As it is, he assists his father with a huge range of patients: a child with measles, a logger bleeding to death from a knife wound. However Ian demurs, the right choice of profession is obvious. (And the medical scenes feel authentic — Lawson has done her homework.)

In these particulars, a deeper story gathers force: There's an almost Sophoclean momentum as events rush to their end. The reader prays that inescapable harm will not come to good people. But the novel's true literary antecedent is in Genesis: the story of Esau and Jacob, brothers in a dysfunctional family where each parent has a favorite child and the younger son can think circles around the older. Lawson honors these archetypes by using them discreetly; biblical undertones simply add to the story's richness.

'The Other Side of the Bridge' is an admirable novel. Its old-fashioned virtues were also apparent in 'Crow Lake' — narrative clarity, emotional directness, moral context and lack of pretension — but Lawson has ripened as a writer, and this second novel is much broader and deeper. The author draws her characters with unobtrusive humor and compassion, and she meets one of the fiction writer's most difficult challenges: to portray goodness believably, without sugar or sentiment.

Frances Taliaferro is a writer in New York." Reviewed by Frances Taliaferro, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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Mary Lawson was born and brought up in a farming community in central Ontario. She moved to England in 1968, is married with two sons and lives in Kingston-upon-Thames. This is her second novel.