Novels
- Crow Lake (2002)
- The Other Side of the Bridge (2006)
- Road Ends (2013)
- A Town Called Solace (2021)
Novels Book Covers
Mary Lawson Books Overview
Crow Lake
Mary Lawson’s debut novel is a shimmering tale of love, death and redemption set in a rural northern community where time has stood still. Tragic, funny and unforgettable, this deceptively simple masterpiece about the perils of hero worship leapt to the top of the bestseller lists only days after being released in Canada and earned glowing reviews in The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, to name a few. It will be published in more than a dozen countries worldwide, including the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Italy and Bulgaria. Luke, Matt, Kate and Bo Morrison are born in an Ontario farming community of only a few families, so isolated that the road led only south. There is little work, marriage choices are few, and the winter cold seeps into the bones of all who dare to live there. In the Morrisons hard working, Presbyterian house, the Eleventh Commandment is Thou Shalt Not Emote. But as descendants of a great grandmother who fixed a book rest to her spinning wheel so that she could read while she was spinning, the Morrison children have some hope of getting off the land through the blessings of education. Luke, the eldest, is accepted at teachers college despite having struggle mightily through school but before he can enroll, the Morrison parents are killed in a collision with a logging truck. He gives up his place to stay home and raise his younger sisters seven year old Kate, and Bo, still a baby. In this family bound together by loss, the closest relationship is that between Kate and her older brother Matt, who love to wander off to the ponds together and lie on the bank, noses to the water. Matt teaches his little sister to watch damselflies performing their delicate iridescent dances, to understand how water beetles carry down an air bubble with them when they submerge. The life in the pond is one that seems to go on forever, in contrast to the abbreviated lives of the Morrison parents. Matt becomes Kate’s hero and her guide, as his passionate interest in the natural world sparks an equal passion in Kate. Matt, a true scholar, is expected to fulfill the family dream by becoming the first Morrison to earn a university degree. But a dramatic event changes his course, and he ends up a farmer; so it is Kate who eventually earns the doctorate and university teaching position. She is never able to reconcile her success with what she considers the tragedy of Matt s failure, and she feels a terrible guilt over the sacrifices made for her. Now a successful biologist in her twenties, she nervously returns home with her partner, a microbiologist from an academic family, to celebrate Matt s son s birthday. Amid the clash of cultures, Kate takes us in and out of her troubled childhood memories. Accustomed to dissecting organisms under a microscope, she must now analyze her own emotional life. She is still in turmoil over the events of one fateful year when the tragedy of another local family spilled over into her own. There are things she cannot understand or forgive. In this universal drama of family love and misunderstandings, Lawson ratchets up the tension, her narrative flowing with consummate control in ever increasing circles, overturning one s expectations to the end. Compared by Publishers Weekly to Richard Ford for her lyrical, evocative writing, Lawson combines deeply drawn characters, beautiful writing and a powerful description of the land. From the Hardcover edition.
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 BridgeFrom the Hardcover edition.
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