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Aug/Sept 2011 www.esb.ie/em
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By Kathleen Thorne
BOOK REVIEW
The Other side of the Bridge
By Mary Lawson
Published by Vintage books
Price €5.79
Ian Christopherson is an only child, a son of the local doctor, who lives in a harsh but beautiful place in Northern Ontario. Struan is the name of this small town in the back of beyond. Like all small towns, it has a varied community of farmers, shopkeepers and professional people. In The Other Side of the Bridge, we come to know many of these people – some more intimately than others.
While Ian and his father both love Struan, his mother hates it. She eventually runs off with a local school teacher, leaving Ian and his father to get on without her. Ian is bitter about this and it takes many years before he can distance himself from the hurt.
In church one day, he sees a young woman called Laura. From a safe distance he falls in love with her. She is the wife of a local farmer, Arthur Dunn. In order to get close to her he decides to ask Arthur for a job on the farm. Arthur is happy to give him weekend and holiday work and there begins a life-time of connection between Ian and the Dunn family.
Ian grows up and leaves to become a medical student. However, before he goes, he becomes the catalyst for a dramatic and fatal event on the Dunn farm. This event involves Arthur’s brother Jake, who has been a problem maker in the family. It marks the climax of the novel and impacts on Ian’s life forever after.
This is an exceptionally good novel in all respects. The timescale is ambitious. The northern setting is depicted clearly without tediously long descriptive passages. The characters and the family histories live long in the memory.
