The Other Side of the Bridge [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Mary Lawson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2007

Two brothers, Arthur and Jake, are the sons of a local farmer in the mid-1930s, when life is tough and another world war is looming. Arthur is reticent, solid, dutiful, set to inherit the farm and his father's character; Jake is younger, attractive, mercurial and dangerous to know. A young woman, Laura, comes into the community and tips the fragile balance of sibling rivalry over the edge...And then there is Ian, son of the local doctor, much younger, thoughtful, idealistic, and far too sure that he knows the difference between right and wrong. By now it is the Fifties, and the world has changed - a little, but not enough. The stories of these two generations in the small town of Struan and its harsh rural hinterland are tragically interlocked, linked by fate and community but separated by a war which devours its young men and whose unimaginable horror reaches right into the heart of this remote corner of an empire. Lawson has an astonishing ability to turn the ratchet of tension slowly and delicately, building to a shocking climax. Taut with apprehension, surprising the reader 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.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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. (Oct. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

It's an age-old story--two brothers in love with the same woman--but in Lawson's masterful hands, the emotive tale of Arthur and Jake Dunn and the young woman who comes between them takes on a luminous originality. Set in a backwoods village in northern Canada, the story flashes back to 1930 to establish the tenacity of the Dunn brothers' relationship, and leaps forward to 1950, where Lawson, following her fine debut, Crow Lake (2002), cannily introduces a fourth element to the standard love triangle. Young Ian Christopherson, son of the town's only doctor, takes a summer job working on Arthur's farm, not because he craves the grueling labor but simply to be closer to Dunn's wife, Laura. When Jake resurfaces after more than a decade's absence, Ian interprets Laura's changed behavior in ways that will have devastating consequences. Lawson's melancholy saga of misspent youth, misplaced passion, and mistaken assumptions evinces both an enchanting delicacy and provocative vitality, and delivers an unerring sensitivity to place and time, people and passions. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 501 pages
• Publisher: Wheeler Publishing (March 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597224561
• ISBN-13: 978-1597224567
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,158,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent novel, August 23, 2007

By 

Susan (Oxford, OH) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Other Side of the Bridge (Hardcover)

There will be debate about which is the better book, Mary Lawson's first novel, Crow Lake, or this second, The Other Side of the Bridge. Both are quite well-written, engaging, readable, and memorable enough that I wanted my own copies to re-read, having initially read library copies. If I had to declare one better, it would be The Other Side of the Bridge, as more fully realized from start to finish. The characters are believably alive and humanly real, and what happens in their lives is equally believable. I'm sometimes reminded of Willa Cather, who created people I might have known in a setting unfamiliar to me. I'm looking forward to Mary Lawson's next novel.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "How long would it take to atone?", September 30, 2006

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Other Side of the Bridge (Hardcover)

From childhood, Arthur Dunn is burdened by his size and doleful personality. Living on a farm in remote Struan, in northern Canada, Arthur and his younger brother, Jake, make an uneasy peace with their differences: "Jake was a subtle bully, a devious bully." Jake has been blessed with a sunny personality, articulate and charismatic, his mother's blessing, a shining son with a world of promise ahead. In contrast, Arthur toils beside his father on the farm, but suffers the ignominy of a sluggish mind through years of school he endures for his mother's sake. A pivotal moment occurs between the brothers when Jake suffers a terrible accident, certainly his own fault, yet weight of blame shifts to Arthur, who can barely comprehend his own confused reaction: "He felt breathless with a kind of excitement, made up in equal parts of rage and retribution."

Thereafter a spirit of enmity grows between Jake and Arthur, one that will poison their relationship and inextricably tie them to the past. What began as a sly one-upmanship on Jake's part accelerates to a campaign, their mother Jake's unwitting pawn. As reliable as a farm animal, Arthur is predictable in every respect, unquestioning, obedient and focused on the survival of the family farm. Falling in love with the preacher's daughter, Laura is Arthur's undoing; as soon as the handsome, charming Jake realizes Arthur's predicament, the die is cast. Buffeted by economic insecurity and the devastation of a world war, the brothers act out their roles as if the terrible conclusion is preordained.

Arthur survives, his back bent to the work at hand. True to his nature, Arthur cleans up his brother's wreckage, yet is of little comfort to the mother casually devastated by Jake's two-line goodbye note. Years later, a local young man, Ian Christopherson, son of the town's only doctor, begins working for Arthur, driven in part by an adolescent attraction to Laura, the boy the unwitting catalyst in the novel's powerful denouement. When Jake returns after a long absence, Ian is drawn to his easy affability, at the same time, comforted by Arthur's steadiness, unaware that he is a critical cog in the unfolding drama.

Lawson speaks the language of that murky territory beneath the external lives of her characters, digging into the tortured dynamics of two brothers with different needs, a woman caught in the excitement of first love, a young man running away from his future and a country decimated by the loss of sons in war. Unable to act on his instincts, Arthur resists a primal knowledge, sheathed in fear, while Jake is unerring in destroying his brother's dreams. Lawson is an astute observer of family dynamics and the instantaneous decisions that alter the future, a vast wheel turning inexorably toward resolution and a shattering conclusion. Luan Gaines/2006.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quietly and effectively stunning, November 17, 2006

By 

KatPanama "katpanama" (Readerville) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Other Side of the Bridge (Hardcover)

This, Mary Lawson's second novel (her worthy) first is Crow Lake), is a flat-out stunner. A story quietly told but laden with tension and anxiety, beauty and depth. It will stay with me for a long time. It is sure to be my list of year's best reads. Will be giving it to friends over the holidays, too.