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The Other Side of the Bridge

The Other Side of the Bridge

by Mary Lawson (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2006

    $3.40

  • Used

    Paperback 2006

    $3.55

  • New

    Paperback 2007

    $13.12
Synopsis

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.

$3.40

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Quantity

3 in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 288
 Edition: First Edition.
 Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Published: 14 Sep 2006
ISBN 10: 0701173270
ISBN 13: 9780701173272
Book Overview: A powerful, heartbreaking story about tempting fate and living with the consequences, set like Lawson's magical Crow Lake in the far north of Canada but with a magnificently broader reach.

Media Reviews
Lawson's gifts are enormous, especially her ability to write a literary work in a popular style. Her dialogue has perfect pitch, yet I've never read anyone better at articulating silence. Best of all, Lawson creates the most quotable images in Canadian literature. -- Toronto Star I could not put it down, but perhaps better to say that I could not let it go or that it would not let me go . . . Lawson transported me into a place that I know does not exist by taking me deep down into the story of a family whose fate is inexorable and universal. Her reality became mine. -- Globe and Mail One of the most eagerly awaited books of the autumn season. . . . The prologue draws you in, as does the novel, which is consistently well-written, involving and enjoyable to read. . . . Achingly real, known, [Arthur's] inner life, with all its shifts in understanding, emotion, perception and conflicted impulses, is rendered with compelling force in concise, supple prose. -- Ottawa Citizen [Lawson] returns to several of the themes that marked her brilliantly successful first novel, Crow Lake. . . . Lawson's cornucopia of novelistic gifts, even more bounteously on display in her second book, includes handsome, satisfying sentences, vivid descriptions of physical work and landscape and an almost fiendish efficiency in building the feeling that something very bad is about to happen. -- National Post An accomplished successor to [Crow Lake]. . . . With her cast of engaging characters, Lawson subtly but surely builds the dramatic tension toward a climax that changes the lives of both the Dunn and Christopherson families. Lawson's story is a coming-of-age tale for two generationsof young men, a community and a country. -- Quill & Quire There's something timid yet masterful in Lawson's writing. She neither wastes nor wallows. Her characters do not so much develop as blossom into themselves, one petal after another. . . . This is a book you will be driven to share with friends. -- Gazette (Montreal) A devastating story . . . about pushing fate and dealing with the consequences. The main characters of Arthur and Ian are expertly drawn. -- London Free Press From the Hardcover edition.
Author Bio
Mary Lawson's first novel, Crow Lake, was admired by critics and adored by readers all over the world; translated into 19 languages and published in 21 countries, it was a New York Times bestseller and spent 75 weeks on the bestseller lists in her native Canada. She was born and brought up in a farming community in Ontario, a distant relative of L. M. Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables. Lawson came to England in 1968, is married with two grown-up sons and lives in Kingston-upon-Thames. Her acclaimed first novel was chosen by You magazine for its Reading Group and won the McKitterick Prize.