The Other Side of the Bridge

Mary Lawson’s 2016 novel, The Other Side of the Bridge, tells the dual stories of Arthur and Ian, two men separated by a generation but in love with the same woman: Arthur’s wife, Laura.

Odd-numbered chapters are told from the point-of-view of Ian Christopherson, the son of a doctor who takes a job on Arthur Dunn’s farm, chiefly to be near Laura Dunn. Even-numbered chapters follow Arthur Dunn. The older of the two Dunn brothers, Arthur is repeatedly portrayed as a large, lumbering, slow-thinking man happiest plowing the fields of his farm near the fictional town of Struan, in Northern Canada.

Ian’s story is set in the late 1950s, a generation later than Arthur’s, which begins toward the end of the Great Depression, in the late 1930s. Arthur is a child and young man in the chapters told from his point-of-view, and a grown man with a wife and children in the chapters told from Ian’s point-of-view. Lawson’s choice of structure means the action of the novel sometimes occurs out of sequence, and the novel sometimes does not fill in all the gaps between the two stories, leaving some details for the reader to guess at on their own.

The story of the Dunn family centers around the two brothers, Arthur and Jake. The brothers are opposites in every way. Arthur is quiet, strong, and dutiful, happiest with his father, working the family farm, while Jake is good-looking, clever, book-smart and lazy.

Arthur is the first-born child and the favorite of his father. Jake, who was born after two miscarriages, is their mother’s favorite. This dichotomy remains throughout the novel, with Arthur in the more masculine role while Jake is continually the more feminine character. While this split exists, each brother also longs for the affection and approval of the parent that they feel like they do not have.

While their mother spoils Jake compared the Arthur, Jake longs for their father Henry’s approval, something he never gets, in part because while he longs for it, he is unable to do the work or make the effort it would take to get Henry’s approval. Arthur, for his part, is well aware that Jake is their mother’s favorite, but feels powerless to change that.

Jake is prone to taking risks, something established in the Prologue, when Jake pesters Arthur into playing a game Jake has invented, called “Knives.” The game consists of standing opposite each other some distance and throwing a large hunting knife as close to the other’s bare foot as possible without hitting it. A knife hits Arthur’s foot, which sets the stage for many other of Jake’s impulsive, risk-taking adventures to land on Arthur.

Jake’s recklessness has Arthur covering for his brother from the beginning. He never tells his parents about the knife, instead driving a pitchfork through his boot to make it seem like an accident. Arthur also scrapes the burn wood off fence posts that young Jake enjoys setting on fire. Eventually, Jake’s recklessness catches up with him: he falls off a bridge and is crippled. After months in the hospital, which nearly bankrupt his family, Jake lives, but carries a permanent limp.

Although the fall is entirely Jake’s fault, Arthur suffers immense guilt because he did not believe that Jake was really falling and not only ignored his cries for help, but when Jake finally said, “I’m going to fall” (83), Arthur says “Good” (83), which haunts him for the remainder of the novel.

After the fall, Arthur and Jake’s relationship is different, and the two are more consciously enemies. This becomes the defining element of their relationship from then on.

Shortly after Jake returns, World War II breaks out and Arthur tries to enlist, but he’s rejected for flat feet. He is left behind when all of his friends set out for basic training. Soon after that, their father, Henry, dies driving a tractor into a ditch, a major plot point in Arthur’s timeline that is first revealed in Ian’s timeline. Afterward, Arthur must run not just his family’s farm alone, but the neighbors’ farms as well, since the neighbor’s three sons (Arthur’s friends) are off fighting.

As the war progresses, many of the small town’s young men are killed. Arthur and Jake, both unable to serve, Arthur because of flat feet, Jake because of his limp, are among the few survivors of their generation in the area. Near the end of the war, they both fall in love with Laura, a young girl whose family moves to town during the war. Arthur is in love with Laura but never does anything about it. Jake is not in love with her and pursues her mostly out of spite for his brother. He ends up getting Laura pregnant and disappearing, leaving only a single-line note, “Sorry to go without saying good-bye. Love, Jake” (292).

Arthur is left to deal with the mess Jake has made. Arthur marries Laura and raises Jake’s son as his own. Eventually, they have two more children.

As the story of the Dunns unfolds, the novel also tells the story of Ian, whose life overlaps with the Dunn family when he takes a part-time job on the farm. As the novel opens, Ian is restless, dreams of leaving the small town of Struan, and is obsessed with Laura Dunn. Eventually, he becomes less sure of what he wants to do, less sure he wants to escape Struan, and less obsessed with Laura Dunn.

Through Ian, the novel shows the outcome of Arthur and Jake’s backstory, but the novel takes a turn when the long-departed Jake returns and attempts to renew his affair with Laura. At first, Arthur ignores his brother but eventually doing so becomes impossible. Ian catches the two in embracing in the kitchen and tells Arthur, which sets in motion the tragic ending.

Arthur throws Jake from the house and forces him into his car, seriously beating Jake in the process. The final cruelty comes when Jake accidentally runs over his own son with his car, killing him.

The Epilogue skips ahead twenty years to resolve Ian’s story. While he does leave, he ends up back in Struan, a small-town doctor just like his father before him, and his grandfather before that, just like everyone expected he would, but he is at peace and does not feel trapped by his life. The Epilogue closes with Ian attending to Arthur as Arthur is dying from a series of heart attacks. The book closes with the two sitting quietly together, as they had years before, when they would take a break from working in the fields.