41 pages • 1 hour read
Mary LawsonThe Other Side of the Bridge
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
The novel opens with a memory from an uncertain time, a hazy look back at a moment in Arthur and Jake’s childhood. “Arthur Dunn was thirteen or fourteen” (2) writes Lawson, framing the story that follows as almost outside of time. The scene opens with Arthur’s brother, Jake, who is “eight or nine” (2), pestering Arthur to play a game that Jake has invented called “Knives” (2).
Lawson frames the two brothers as opposites, with Jake free-spirited and goofing off in destructive ways while Arthur, who doesn’t want to play, says “I’m busy” (2) and carries on with “whatever task his father had set him to” (2). Jake is relentless, though, and eventually Arthur gives in and agrees to play.
The two stand apart and throw Jake’s big hunting knife at each other’s feet, trying to get as close as possible to the other’s foot without actually hitting it. Wherever the knife lands, the player must spread their legs so their foot touches it, then it’s their turn to throw. Whoever falls down first (from spreading their legs) loses.
The climax of the scene comes not when the knife hits Arthur’s foot but right before that, when he first senses that Jakes hates him: “The thought came into his mind–not drifting gently in but appearing suddenly, fully formed, like a cold hard round little pebble–that Jake hated him” (4). As Arthur is wondering why Jake hates him, Jake throws and the knife lands in the dirt inches from Arthur’s foot.
Arthur throws the knife wide to make sure it won’t hit Jake. He can’t risk hurting Jake because he knows his mother would be furious and he imagines “what his father would do to him if he were […] to catch him playing this stupid game” (5). The second time Jake throws the knife, it hits Arthur’s foot. Arthur considers in that “surreal split second before the blood started to well up” (6) whether Jake meant to do it, or if he is as surprised as Arthur.
The last sentence sets the stage for Jake’s character for the rest of the book; Arthur realizes that Jake will do what he wants, “and damn the consequences” (7).
Chapter 1 Summary
The first chapter opens with two headlines from a newspaper, the Temiskaming Speaker, dated May 1957. Every subsequent chapter will also open with two newspaper headlines and dates, offering readers a way to always know whether they’re in Ian’s timeline or Arthur’s. Ian’s timeline is in the late 1950s into the 1960s, while Arthur’s is the late 1920s into the 1940s. The headlines also offer a glimpse at local events and help to establish some details of the world of rural, northern Canada (Lawson reveals in an Afterward that these are actual headlines pulled from the actual Temiskaming Speaker).
This chapter opens with Ian Christopherson sitting in church, watching Laura Dunn, whom Ian says was soft and beautiful, like her name. After church, he rides his bike out to Arthur’s farm to try to get a job. The farm is “an oddity” (12) because Arthur still uses horses. It is also revealed that Arthur’s father was killed in a tractor accident. Ian gets the job, though as he puts it, he “had not given any thought to the job,” (13) as his sole motivation is to be closer to Laura Dunn.
After Arthur tells him to come the following Saturday, Ian leaves the farm and Lawson sketches his family history in the small town of Struan. Ian’s father is the second Dr. Christopherson, having followed in his father’s footsteps after a short time in Toronto for medical school. It is revealed that the majority of the town treats Ian as though he will be the third Dr. Christopherson. For his part, Ian is adamant that he will not stay in Struan or be a doctor: “as far as he was concerned his grandfather must have been raving mad. Imagine voluntarily leaving a city like Toronto to come to a hick town like Struan” (12).
This chapter also introduces what life is like for the doctor of a small town like Struan. Ian’s house–built for his grandfather by the people of Struan–is also his father’s office and waiting room. On returning, Ian sits down and waits for his father, just like a patient, to tell him he has a job. Ian’s father is surprised at Ian’s choice of work, but says Arthur’s horses are “magnificent animals” (15), which Ian agrees with “though he had barely noticed them […] He and his father smiled at each other, glad to be in agreement. They were usually in agreement, unlike Ian and his mother” (15).
Ian goes from his father to his mother whose reaction contrasts markedly to that of his father. Ian’s mother largely ignores him. Distracted by watching TV, she pays him little attention, which leads Ian to reflect that his mother is different than other mothers in town. Ian’s mother is from Vancouver and not fond of Struan, which she sees as beneath her: “People were a little bit afraid of her–he knew that. She could be sharp” (19).
This chapter also reveals that Ian’s mother has become increasingly withdrawn recently, no longer attempting to talk at dinner or stopping Ian from leaving in the evenings to fish with his friend, Pete. Pete is Ojibway, the native tribe that has reservation land near Struan. Pete and his father live at and run a store on the reservation. Pete and Ian have been friends since they were little boys.
The chapter ends with Ian and Pete out on the lake in their boats, fishing and talking about school. Ian tells Pete he got a job at Arthur Dunn’s farm, which Pete thinks is crazy. Near the end of the scene, it’s hinted that Pete understands Ian’s motivation for working on the farm. “Pete looked at him, slitty-eyed. Then suddenly, he grinned. ‘What?’ Ian asked defensively. ‘Nothin’,’ Pete said. ‘Nothin’ at all’” (27).
Chapter 2 Summary
Chapter 2 opens with headlines from the Temiskaming Speaker, dated March 1925. This begins with Arthur’s memories of the first Dr. Christopherson coming to his house when Arthur was a young boy, to help his mother through two miscarriages and then finally the birth of his brother, Jake.
Arthur thinks that the difficulty of Jake’s birth leads their mother to consider Jake “so precious to his mother that she could hardly bear it” (30). Arthur recalls how one cough out of Jake would send Arthur’s mother seeking Dr. Christopherson while Arthur is largely ignored by his mother. Soon, Arthur is drawn into his mother’s protective anxiety about Jake and begins to look out for him, something Arthur will continue to do for the rest of the novel. In this chapter, he saves him from possibly drowning in a water trough, not because he actually thinks Jake will drown, but because he knows his mother will be grateful for it.
Early on the brothers get along, but when Jake starts school, the tensions between them begin to grow. Arthur considers school a burden to be endured, while Jake quickly excels.
The house becomes more sharply divided into camps when Arthur’s father suggests that it’s time for Jake to start helping out. Their mother protests and their father does not argue back; he seems to be unwilling to challenge his wife in any way when it comes to Jake.
The final scene in the chapter involves Jake and Arthur at school. Jake claims another boy threw his book in the mud and asks Arthur to defend him. It’s the first time Jake has overtly used Arthur to defend himself, though he knows Arthur has been covering for him in other ways. Arthur does eventually challenge the boy that Jake says threw his book, but the boy denies everything Jake claims he did. Arthur’s instinct is to believe the boy, but he is unable to back down once he has started and so ends up in trouble at school. He winds up thinking Jake has lied to him. It’s not clear whether he has or not, though the reader is left sympathizing with Arthur.
Prologue-Chapter 2 Analysis
The Prologue and opening chapters of The Other Side of the Bridge establish all the major characters of the novel, the most central of which are Arthur, Jake, and Ian. The very opening scene in the Prologue establishes the central conflict of the novel, that between Arthur and Jake, who will wrestle with one another while, mostly subconsciously, seeking to win their parents’ approval. The hunting knife hitting Arthur’s foot creates a tension and threat of violence that hovers over everything that follows.
Through these chapters, we see the differences between Arthur and Jake, which are part of the source of their conflict. Arthur is the big, lumbering farmhand: quiet, obedient, shy, and, it seems, happy. Jake, on the other hand, is impulsive, mischievous and, at least in some ways, incapable. Jake is the prototypical booksmart mama’s boy: not strong or any good at farm work, happiest at school, and always aware that, as long as she can, his mother will save him.
Jake’s mother’s attachment to him is shown to be beyond reasonable and tending toward anxiety, as if she is contently waiting for something to go horribly wrong–a theme that will recur until something finally does go wrong, though it is not what Jake’s mother had expected. We also see how Arthur’s nature endears him to his father, who in turn gives him greater responsibility and freedom. At the same time, Arthur worries most about making his mother happy, and we can infer from his actions that Jake is desperate to gain his father’s approval and love.
Chapter 1 introduces Ian, who is obsessed with Laura Dunn. Ian proceeds to embroil himself in the life of Arthur’s family when he takes a job working on the farm, the true motivation for which he tries to hide from everyone in his life. Ian seems convinced that people believe him when he says why he got the job, but in fact it seems unlikely anyone does. Ian’s awkwardness with his mother goes beyond what can be reasonably explained by teenage angst, of which Ian has a healthy dose. These chapters show Ian’s mother as distracted and withdrawn, as well as a source of stress for Ian.
These chapters also introduce most of the novel’s supporting characters: Ian’s father and mother, Laura Dunn, Arthur and Jake’s parents, and Ian’s friend Pete. Pete is established as kind of confessional friend for Ian, and the two spend their time together primarily on the lake near Struan, fishing, which Ian is terrible at.
The other, figurative character we meet in these chapters is Struan, a fictional small town in northern Ontario in which the entire book will take place. Struan is presented in the 1920 section as a place isolated from the world, both in positive and negative ways. Struan largely avoids the Great Depression, though it appears to seep in somewhat in the form of wandering hobos (yet another fear of Arthur’s mother: that a hobo will hurt Jake).
Ian also provides a portrait of Struan three decades later. The outside world remains far away, though it has arrived enough to tempt the imagination of restless youth like Ian.
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