#Plot Overview

Mary Lawson's *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, son of a small doctor, who takes a job on Arthur Dunn's farm, chiefly to be near Laura Dunn. Even-numbered chapters follow Arthur Dunn. The oldest of the two Dunn brothers, Arthur is repeated 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 wife and children in the chapter's 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, the 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. Inevitably the 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 reckless 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 the eponymous bridge and is crippled. After months in the hospital, which nearly bankrupt his family, Jake lives, but carries a permanent limp. 

Although the fall was 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", Arthur says "Good" which haunts him for the remainder of the novel.

After the fall Arthur and Jake's relationship is different, more consciously enemies, a feeling that was always there -- in the prologue the idea that Jake hates him first occurs to Arthur -- but 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 as well since the neighbor's three sons (Arthur's friends) are off fighting WWII. 

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. 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."

It's left to Arthur 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 Dunn's 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. As his story unfolds though becomes less sure 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 back story, but the novel takes a turn with the long departed Jake returns and attempts to renew his affair with Laura. At first Arthur ignores his brother, but eventually that 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, not trapped by his life. The epilogue closes with Ian attending to Arthur has he 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.


# Chapter Summaries

## Prologue - Chaper 2

###Prologue

The novel opens with a memory of uncertain timing, a hazy look back at a moment in Arthur and Jake's childhood. "Arthur Dunn was thirteen or fourteen" 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", pestering Arthur to play a game that Jake has invented called "Knives". 

Lawson already frames the two brothers as opposites, with Jake free-spirited and goofing off in destructive ways, inventing a game involving throwing knives at the other person's foot, while Arthur, who doesn't want to play, says "I’m busy” and carries on with "whatever task his father had set him to." Jake is relentless though and so eventually Arthur gives in and agrees to play once.

The two stand apart and throw Jake's big hunting knife at each other's feet, trying to get as close as possible without actually hitting the other's foot. 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 inevitably hits Arthur's foot, but right before that, when he first sense 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". As Arthur is wondering why Jake hates him, Jake throws and the knife lands in the dirt inches from his 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 even to catch him playing this stupid game." The second time Jake throws it the knife hits Arthur's foot. Arthur considers in that "surreal split second before the blood started to well up" whether Jake meant to do it, or if he is a surprised as Arthur. 

The last sentence sets the stage for Jake's character in the rest of the book: "simply to do whatever you wanted to do, and damn the consequences."

### Chapter 1

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 headline and date, offering readers a way to always know whether they're in Ian's timeline or Arthur's, Ian's in the late 1950s into the 1960s, while Arthur's is the late 1920s into the 1940s. The headline also offer a glimpse at local events and help to establish some details in world of rural northern Canada (Lawson reveals in an afterward that these are actual headlines pull from the 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 paints as "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) his sole motivation is to be close to Laura Dunn.

After Arthur tells him to come the following Saturday Ian leave 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", 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 says simple "that's nice" and goes back to watching TV, 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 which has reservation land near Struan. Pete and his father live at and run a store on the reserve. 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 though 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

Chapter two 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." 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 the rest of the novel. In this chapter he saves him from possibly drown 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 then when Jake starts school, the tensions between them begin to grow. Arthur considers school a burden to be endured, but Jake quickly excels. 

The house becomes more sharply divided into camps when Arthur's father suggests that it is time for Jake to start helping out. Their mother protests, their father does not argue, 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 his is unable to back down once he has started and so ends up in trouble at school. He ends 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, brothers Arthur and Jake, and Ian. The very opening scene in the prologue establishes the central conflict of the novel, the conflict between Arthur and Jake, who will throughout the novel wrestle with the conflicts of each other as well as (mostly subconsciously) seek 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 farm hand, 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 book smart, 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 the reasonable, tending toward anxiety, as if she is contently waiting for something to go horribly wrong -- a theme that will re-occur over and over 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 one introduces Ian, who is obsessed with Laura Dunn. Ian proceeds to embroil himself in the life of Arthur's family when he take 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, the two spend their time together primarily on the lake near Struan, fishing, which Ian is terrible at.

The one other 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 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. 

## Chapter 3-6

### Chapter 3 Summary 

Ian goes to Arthur's farm for his first day of work and discovers that it's very different than he imagined. What Ian wanted was to be near Laura Dunn, but he sees her for less than a minute, instead he gets close to Arthur Dunn. He also discovers that farming is hard work, his body aches: "before the first hour was up his muscles -- all of them, in every part of his body -- reminded him of the diagrams of human musculature in his father’s textbooks: the muscles were drawn in red ink and looked raw and stretched to breaking point." (tk)

He says he sustains himself through the work by dreaming of how he'll eat lunch with Arthur and Laura and get to be close to her and have conversation with her, but again reality is different. Lunch is busy and noisy, there are three kids to feed as well and he again has no time to interact with Laura Dunn the way he wants to.

After work Ian goes home. He takes two bathes to get all the mud and dirt off him and then goes down to dinner where his parent tell him they're getting a divorce. His mother is leaving Struan to marry one of Ian's teachers, whom Ian describes as "tall and thin and had wire-rimmed glasses and a sarcastic manner. There was no way anyone could love him." (tk)

Despite Ian's rationalizations, his mother does indeed leave him and his father. She asks Ian to come with her, but when he asks if he won't go, would she go anyway, she says yes. Betrayed, Ian elects to remain with his father in Struan. "He understood, finally, that he was not important to her. Not that important." (tk)

To console himself he walks out to Arthur's farm in the dark and watches Laura Dunn breastfeed her baby. 

The day his mother finally leaves Ian at first does not even interrupt his school work to say goodbye. Finally with his mother crying, and Ian claiming he doesn't care, he says goodbye without even turning around to look at her and she leaves.

### Chapter 4

Time has moved ahead considerably, it is no 1938 and Arthur is 17. The Chapter opens with him lamenting that he has never had a girlfriend. He is too shy to talk to women. Jake on the other hand was, according to Arthur, "born knowing" how to talk to women and has no trouble with girls at all.

Jake is presented as someone who's respected more than previously, in part because of his success with girls. He has "more friends who were female than male." (tk) And that makes "other boys were a bit suspicious, maybe even a little afraid of him." It's further revealed that the incident where Jake got Arthur in trouble at school was not an isolated one. Other children fear him because "he the ability to get people into trouble -- anyone who had been through primary school with him knew that." (tk same)

Arthur spends most of the chapter arguing with his mother about school. She wants him to stay in school, Arthur feels trapped in school and doesn't see the point. He's 17 and still in tenth grade. He can "hardly squeeze his body into the space between the desk and the seat" he's so large. He feels he's a grown man and school will teach him nothing useful he needs to know for his life running the farm.

He asks his father if he can quit school but his father differs to his mother who tells Arthur he must remain in school. Arthur trudges through his existence at school, living mainly for his time on the farm and Saturday nights in town when he and his friends go to the bar. They're too young to go in the bar, but "the liquor generally found its way out," and their favorite activity is fighting. Arthur does not get involved in the fights, but he is happy "just standing on the sidelines, watching."

This chapter introduces Arthur's friend Carl Luntz, one of three sons of Otto and Gertie Luntz, who own the farmland adjacent to Arthur's father's land. Carl and Arthur spend their weekend at the bar.

Jake continues to avoid farm work. He gets home late in the evening and his father angrily asks where he's been and he says he's in a play, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Jake is Romeo. Jake's mother defends him and gets their father to let him out of work again, but Jake's father and Arthur do not go to the play. Afterward Jake is clearly very hurt, going to his room without speaking.

"He so badly wanted you to come," says Arthur’s mother, which is the first time in the novel that she reproaches her husband at all. Arthur's father is angry and "stung by guilt and his wife’s reproach" he says "farming’s important. Work’s important. Time he knew what matters and what doesn't."(tk)

The next seen in a ten day blizzard that traps everyone inside and has Jake and his father at each other's throats. Jake wants to play cards, his father does not approve. Arthur and his father have to put down a sick horse and Jake makes an ill-timed joke that further infuriates his father and drives them more apart.

One day, about a month after the storm, Arthur's father asks Jake and Arthur to take two cows over to the Luntz's farm. Jake tries to get out of the job, but this time his father insists. He and Arthur walk the cows over the Luntz farm, with Jake, as usual, screwing around as they go. They get to a bridge that crosses the river that separates the Dunn's property from the Luntz's and Jake wants to try going across hanging from a pole below the river, hand over hand. 

Arthur ignores his brother's behavor, even when Jake gets under the bridge to go across. Arthur is well inured of Jake's antics at this point. Jake tries to make it a competition, but as with the knife throwing game, Arhtur ignores him. Arthur sets about getting the cows across while Jake tries to cross below, hanging from the pipe, going hand over hand. Jake starts to say he can't do it, but Arthur assumes he's pulling his leg and continue to ignroe him. Jake continues to yell and Arthur is not sure whether to believe him or not. Finally Jake yells "I'm going to fall" (tk) and Arthur, frustrated with years of Jake's behavior, says "good."

Jake falls onto the rocks and in the icy river. Arthur rescues him, carrying Jake back to the house where Dr. Christopherson puts him in an ambulance and rushes him to the hospital. Left behind, Arthur is wracked with guilt about what happened, but most of all that he said "Good."


### Chapter 3-4 Analysis

After he gets home, Ian has a bath and despite commenting on the strangeness of both his parents' behavior he is lost in his own thoughts. He is proud that he's done his first day's work, and even more proud that Arthur asked him to come back the following Saturday. This is not the first time the novel brings up this theme, of the pride in hard work, but it's the first time it comes up in Ian's timeline and helps to link Ian and Arthur, who both value hard work and, more importantly, a bearing up under hardship -- whatever the cause -- with stoicism. This stands in contrast to Ian's mother, who in the very next scene does the opposite.

The scene with his parents at dinner seem to happen at a distance for Ian. When his mother tells him she's leaving to marry one of his teachers and move back to the city, Ian feels like he's not that important to her, which is correct from his point of view, but serves to also establish his youth and naivete. He is completely unable to see it from her point of view. 

The word choice and narration in this section highlight's Ian detachment from the pain he feels. He seems to have stepped outside himself, and is watching himself as the reader does for a few pages. At the end of the section is completely outside himself, "impressed by his response -- how calm it sounded."(tk)

His refuge from what is the central crises of Ian's timeline, is spying on Laura Dunn. Ian doesn't seem to have any ill intent, though he is aware that if he were caught he would be called a "peeping tom." Rather he needs to connect, however imaginatively, with some other mother figure in his life and Laura Dunn is the closest thing he has.

The fourth chapter starts with an innocent portrait of life on Dunn farm. The conflict between Arthur and his mother about school continues a running theme of school not being very useful for someone like Arthur, who plans to be a farmer like his father before him. This also serves to contrast with Jake, who not only excels at school, but participates in after school activities like the play, primarily, the reader suspects, as a way to avoid working on the farm.

Arthur is also shown as willing to confront what life gives him, while Jake avoids it. During the blizzard when the horse takes sick it is Arthur who goes with his father to try to help the horse. It is Arthur who has to witness his father shooting it, "that great still body on the frozen floor."(tk)

While Jake takes refuge from the farm in a play, Arthur takes refuge from school in Saturday nights. True to character though, Arthur is always on the sidelines, watching his friends get drunk and fight, but never doing so himself. Arthur has also reached a kind of peace with Jake at this point. He says he doesn't hate him, or not very often, but he also doesn't understand him. Jake his become almost like a background irritation to Arthur, there, but not something Arthur pays much attention. 

This change in relationship sets up the accident on the bridge, the event from which the book takes it's title.

Right after Ian's mother leaving comes one of the defining moments in the story of Arthur and Jake -- Jake's fall from the bridge. Thanks to the backstory that has established the characters, there is nothing about the scene that's unexpected. Jake takes the risk as he always does, the difference is that for once Arthur doesn't save him. Jake falls and even though Arthur does save him, Arthur feeling guilty for saying "good" when Jake said he was going to fall, and also worried that Jake will tell his parents that he said it.

The chapter closes with a flash forward through Arthur's future nightmares in which he is forever going over and over those final seconds on the bridge, "trying to change them: trying to replace what happened with what should have happened, what he should have done." (tk)


## Chapter 5-8

### Chapter 5

Ian's mother had been his father's nurse as well as wife, which leaves a job opening that inevitably, after one nurse stays the summer and flees the winter, fall to Ian. It irritates Ian but eventually he accepts it. There is another nurse who helps his father during regular office hours, but emergencies and off-hour calls fall to Ian. 

Ian turns 17 in this chapter and Laura Dunn makes him a cake, which instigates his first real conversation with her. 

This chapter also introduces Ian's girlfriend Cathy. In Ian's mind their relationship is an accident of happenstance that he is willing to go along with. Ian also reveals his fear of sex, born not nervousness or insecurity, but from the fear of pregnancy, that getting a girl pregnant would trap him in Struan. 

For his birthday his mother gives him a jacket which he never wears, while his father gives him a beautiful wooden canoe. Ian loves the canoe, but thinks it a strange gift for someone who is leaving (as Ian plans to do) in a few months. Ian suspects his father may have unconsciously given it to him so he would have some reason to come back to Struan. 

Ian and his father struggle to maintain a "normal" like in the absence of his mother. They draw closer in her absence, especially with Ian sharing in his father's work. But Ian believes his father is depressed. "In the evenings that he went downhill. He fought against it; Ian could see that." Ian tries to help his father by talking about patients and helping him get his mind off of his now ex-wife.

Ian shows Pete the new canoe the day he gets it, and they fish together. Pete for the first time establishes a difference between himself in Ian when he, in jest, says "Well, well. A white man in a canoe." he then hooks a fish so large it nearly pulls him out of the boat, breaking his line. 

To help his father maintain some degree of normalcy, Ian goes with him to church, where he talks to the Dunn family outside of his work at the farm. For the first time the character of Carter, the oldest Dunn child, asserts himself in Ian's mind. Later that night the town sheriff knocks on Ian's door with Carter who is bleeding from the head. Carter had stolen his father's truck and tried to drive it winding up in a ditch.

Ian feels sorry for him and it is revealed that Arthur doesn't seem to pay much attention to Carter and gives him chores that keep him near the house, near his mother.

The chapter closes with Ian once again playing peeping tom at the Dunn's farm after dark.

### Chapter 6

Jake is in the hospital for three months, which strains the Dunn finances. The world of Struan, at least the farmers like the Dunn family, operate largely without cash, growing, making and bartering for everything they need. Arthur's father has to take out a loan to pay Jake's medical expenses. It is the height of the great depression and debt is crippling many a farm. And now the Dunns are in debt, something Arthur blames himself for, adding to his guilt, and something his father blames Jake for, adding to his unhappiness with his younger son.

Arthur returns to the bridge, trying to see if there was a way he could have saved Jake, but there isn't. he tried to tell his father about what happened, but only gets to the part about Jake hanging from the pipe when his father interrupts, "'he was foolin' around,' Arthur’s father said, splitting the trunk of the poplar with one savage blow. 'Just like I thought. Foolin’ around, like always.'" So Arthur ends up putting even more blame on Jake in his father's mind when what he meant to do was take some of the blame.
 
Jake finally comes home at the end of summer, but he walks with a limp and is clearly in pain. He and ARthur finally talk, he asks Arthur if he meant what he said on the bridge. Arthur is taken aback by the "direct, simple, unbearable question." But he tells Jake, "Jesus, no, Jake. Oh, Jesus, no." Jake then asks why his father didn't visit him in the hospital, which Arthur says was because it was too expensive.

His mother still makes Arthur go to school, though all his friends have long since stopped. A short while later Canada enters World War II and Arthur and his friends try to enlist. Arthur is denied because of flat feet. His friends are accepted into the army, and head off to war, which leaves most of the farms in the area shorthanded. His father says that Arthur can stop school and will work the farm, and perhaps the neighbors farm as well.

His mother tries to argue, but his father sticks to his plan, "and that was the end of it. Freedom. Nineteen years old, flat-footed and riddled with guilt, but free at last."(tk)

### Chapter 7

Ian's school year is near to ending and he must tell his guidance counselor what he plans to do after high school, but he's unable to come up with an answer. He tells him he wants to be a farmer, though he doesn't, but Mr. Hardy, the guidance counselor, calls his bluff and asks him if he wants to apply to an agricultural school near Toronto. Ian caves and says he wants to think about it.

Ian is studying one day when his father calls for him to help in the office. When Ian gets down stairs he sees "a sizable pool of blood on the floor." Two men, one of them Pete's neighbor, a native man named Jim Lightfoot, have been in a knife fight. The other man is badly wounded, the knife having cut into his leg and hit his artery. Ian clamps the artery to slow the bleeding while his father gets ready to give the man a blood transfusion, but before that happens the man dies. 

Ian is taken be surprise, "he couldn’t believe it. It couldn't be over as quickly, as simply, as that." Ian is shocked both by the death and by the realization that for his father, a doctor, "it wasn't a shocking or unusual occurrence, it was a commonplace. Which was the most shocking thing of all." (tk)

Jim Lightfoot is arrested for the murder, which he may or may not have committed. His arrest sparks considerable unrest and tension between the town of Struan and the native community living on the edge of it. Ian has Math test, one necessary to graduate and his friend Pete almost does not make the test, which makes Ian upset. Ian and Pete fight, partly about what has happened to Jim Lightfoot (who is in jail). Pete points out Ian's naivete, saying, "you have such a simple view of life."

This time Ian does not retreat to the Dunn farm to get away, but takes the canoe out on the lake to fish. He ends up thinking of his mother and we learn that she has written him every week for three years and Ian has thrown them all away without opening them.

When Ian comes back from his paddle his former girlfriend Cathy is waiting for him. She wants to get back together with him and Ian once again goes along with her though it's obvious he does not feel the same way about her that she does about him.

Ian welcomes the chance to work on Arthur's farm on Saturday, the simplicity and physicality of it has become a welcome retreat from the troubles of his life. Carter has a fight with his mother while Ian is there, Ian volunteers to help out around the house instead of working in the fields so that Carter can do what he needs to do. Arthur says okay and Ian gets to spend the afternoon at the house. He hoes the garden and plays with the kids until a car pulls up and Jake, who has been gone 15 years, gets out.

### Chapter 8

Arthur goes to the Luntz's house to hear Mr. Luntz read letters from his boys, especially Arthur's friend Carl. Arthur's friends in the Army are still in England, training, and have seen no fighting. This routine keeps up for months, then years as 1940 passes. 

The farmers are having a harder time than the troops since the great depression is over and nearly everyone has shipped out overseas for the war. Otto Luntz, unable to work all his fields with his three sons gone, askes Arthur and his father to take over some of them, in exchange for a little rent if they can afford it. Arthur and his father agree to do it. Arthur has a moment of pride when Luntz looks at him while asking, making Arthur feel "a small surge of pride that Mr. Luntz recognized that he was part of the picture now." (tk).

In August of 1942 the Luntz's receive two telegrams in one day, informing them that two of their sons are dead. The next day they get another saying that Arthur's friend Carl is missing, and then the day after that a fourth telegram announcing Carl is dead as well. Not long after that the Luntzs move away, leaving Arthur and his father to work their land.

To help with the considerably larger amount of land, Otto Luntz gives Arthur and his father the tractor. After dinner that night, Arthur and his father start up the tractor. Arthur's father drives off down the road going fast and Arthur takes off chasing him on foot, thinking that he doesn't like the noise of the tractor: "you could still hear the roar. And then all at once the pitch changed." Arthur's father crashes the tractor into a ditch and it rolls on top of him, crushing and killing him.

The chapter closes with Jake finally admitting that he wanted his father's approval, "I thought when I grew up and got a job somewhere, doing something important, he’d see I wasn't useless. You want to know the truth? I hate him for dying before he learned I wasn't useless. That’s the truth."

### Chapter 5-8 Analysis

These chapters mark both Arthur and Ian's transition to manhood with the events that will define them, Jake's accident and his father's death in Arthur's case, and his mother leaving in Ian's case.

Part of Ian's journey in these chapters is beginning to let go of his obsession with Laura Dunn. He slowly begins to let go of some of his idealization of her in the face of actual experience with her, making her more human and less of an archetype in his eyes. The introduction of Cathy as Ian's girlfriend also works to give Ian a greater understanding of himself as seen through someone else's eyes. 

While Ian is growing up, he is also still clearly a boy and both women clearly function for him a surrogate mother's, each fill in a bit of the role that his own mother left unfulfilled.

Arthur reaches the moment that will come to define his relationship with his brother when Jake falls from the bridge and Arthur says the word that will haunt him for the rest of his life, "good." This, combined with losing his friend Carl Luntz to the war serve to hollow out Arthur in some way that we sense, even in the chronologically later parts told by Ians, he has never filled in again. Arthur has been a broken man from the beginning, but now the reader knows why.

In this sense the death of his father is almost anticlimactic. In part because Ian's timeline has already revealed it, but also because compared the perceived betrayal of Jake, his father's death becomes merely an unfortunately accident. The accident does, however, set up an escape for the troubled Arthur by giving him two farms to run and a way to disappear with his sorrows in the work he must do.


## Chapters 9-11

### Chapter 9

Ian meets Jake and witnesses his awkward reunion with first Laura, and then Arthur. Ian is enamored with Jake as a perspective on the outside world. Jake encourages Ian to go further away than Toronto, which is Ian's half-hearted plan for college. Jake suggest Ian go to New York, Los Angeles, China, "See the world!" (tk) Ian suddenly sees that even going to Toronto is a provincial idea of the larger world, "maybe it took someone from outside to point out that there was a world out there," he thinks.

Ian goes to dinner with Cathy and is appalled by her sentimentality and breaks up with her. He tries to retreat from himself by going out to lake and paddling the canoe. He finds Pete, but Pete is abrupt with him and does not offer Ian a chance to unburden himself. He returns home and has a fight with his father about Jim Lightfoot, who is in jail on murder charges and who will most likely not be given a fair trial in Ian's eyes. Ian has taken up Pete's cause. 

Ian helps his father, acting as a nurse before taking his final exam, a chemistry test. Just before the test his father comes down to the dock where Ian has been sitting and tells him that Jim Lightfoot has escaped from jail. Ian is happy because he knows Pete will be happy. The two take their examine and then go hiking up a mountain, to cliff face above the lake where they sit and talk. They see a flock of dragonflies, thousands of them hovering just beyond the edge of the cliff. They sit on the edge and watch them. Ian thinks, "if I live to be a hundred years old, I will always remember this."

After the hike they go back to their end of the school year party, which, despite plans to stay all night and greet the sunrise together, does not last long. Ian goes home and thinks about Jake, envying him for what Ian sees as his confidence and sense of purpose and direction, which Ian lacks.

### Chapter 10

Arthur is overwhelmed trying to run two farms alone. He tries to lose his grief in work, in the routine of the farm, but "the routine was of his father’s devising, and memories ambushed him at every turn." (tk)

Arthur decides he has to tell Otto he can't work his farm and asks his mother to write to him, but she doesn't. Then he asks her again a few months later, becoming angry when she is reluctant to do so. Jake, who could work, but doesn't, tells Arthur to get a POW from the nearby POW camp. Arthur does and two German prisoners of war come to live at the Dunn farm, Dieter and Bernard.

With the help of the POWs Arthur is able to run both farms. Arthur allows the POWs to use the tractor on the Luntz's farm, though he won't use it himself or let them use it on his farm.

In the summer of 1944 the Reverend March and his daughter come to Struan to take the place of the former reverend who is overseas in the war. March's daughter is Laura and the town puts them up at the Luntz farm, which is how Arthur first sees her and fall in love at first sight. Arthur is tongue-tied and awkward around her, but unable to stop thinking about her. It's Laura who ends up talking to Arthur.

For a few weeks Arthur is able to be in love with her and at peace, though he never acts on his love at all. Then one night at dinner his mother encourages Jake to bring Laura over and Arthur blushes. Jake sees it and realizes Arthur is in loves with Laura. The chapter closes with Arthur's vision of the future. "Arthur knew what was going to happen. He saw the whole thing, right then."

### Chapter 11

Jake eats lunch with the Dunn family and Ian, telling stories from earlier in the Arthur timeline, avoiding work, getting in trouble, burning the fence posts, and even acknowledges that Arthur kept him out of trouble. Ian notices that Arthur doesn't seem to like his brother and even avoid him, returning early to the fields to work rather than sitting in the house for a bit after the midday meal the way they did before Jake arrived.

Ian begins to notice that Laura is different around Jake and that Jake follows her around all day. He thinks Laura doesn't like Jake, but Ian feels "uneasy" about the two of them and wonders what Arthur thinks about it. Arthur pretends not to notice and stays out in the fields to avoid Jake.

Ian is grooming the horse one day when Jake approaches him and they talk about the future of Struan, if any of the children will take over the farm, and what Ian will do. Jake puts Ian in a position of defending Struan, which Jake things will suffer in the coming years as kids like Ian move away to the big cities rather than taking over the farm. Jake tells Ian that his father is wasting his time and talents "treating people's sore throats" (tk) and Ian finds himself offended by the slight for Struan and his father.

Ian and Pete go fishing in the evenings. They're still chasing the big fish that got away from Pete. One evening Ian tries to get Pete to tell him what his plans for the future are but Pete won't unless Ian tells him his and Ian can't because he still doesn't know. Finally Ian decides he wants to be a pilot. Pete just laughs.

Arthur too asks Ian what his future plans are, Arthur asks if he will continue to work on the farm during the summers. Ian says that he will the next summer.

Jake and Ian talk of women, Jake reveals that he ahs just split with a woman, which Ian believes is the reason he returned home, "to lick his wounds."

There is a bad car accident and Ian and his father's nurse both have to help out. Dr. Christopherson is able to patch up the injured family well enough until they can be taken away in a ambulance, but Ian realizes that without him it might not have turned out that way. 

Ian's mother stops sending him letters. He has received 192 letter and never opened one of them. Ian goes out to the farm at night to watch Laura Dunn, which he has not done in a long time. He sees Laura and Jake interacting strangely and he can't figure out why.

Pete brings Ian a rabbit, which Ian plans to give to March Dunn, Ian and his father make plans to get a dog. Ian tells his father that he wants to be a pilot.

The chapter ends with Ian dreaming of his mother who tells, cryptically, "tell Laura she doesn't have to worry about Arthur. Arthur will be fine."

### Chapter 9-11 Summary

Jakes arrival back at the farm throws Ian's world into turmoil. Ian looks up to Jake because Jake has escaped Struan and had (he says) fabulous adventures in far away places like San Francisco and New York. Jake is sympathetic to Ian's desire to leave, even as Ian's desire seems to wane. Ian's breakup with Cathy is a moment of maturity for him, recognizing that while she is attractive and wants him, she is not what he wants and for once he does not just go along with things, he goes his own way. The background racial strife of Jim Lightfoot's case mirrors the same strife with the German POW murder in the older timeline.

Arthur's use of the POWs as farmhands is on one hand practical, on the other suggests a kind of stand-in for the German friends he has lost (Carl Luntz), his gesture is perhaps one of atonement to in some way help Carl, if through someone else.

Laura's arrival into Arthur's timeline for a moment leaves the reader thinking perhaps something good will happen to Arthur, but then Jake steps in it becomes obvious that he will use Laura to get back at Arthur for the bridge incident. Laura's arrival also has an ominous note since it comes just after Jake returns to Laura in the other timeline. 


## Chapters 12 - Epilogue

### Chapter 12

Much to Arthur's chagrin Jake begins to pursue Laura. Arthur watches helplessly, never lifting a finger to stop Jake or interfere in any way.

World War II becomes a more central plot point as it winds down and the first soldiers return. One of the POWs working Arthur's farm gets a telegram informing him that his brother has died. Arthur's mother, who has come to think of them as family, consoles him.

Of all the boys who went with Arthur to enlist, only one, Ted Hatchett, is still alive. He returns home badly mangled, with no legs and missing an arm and eye as well. He does not talk, though Arthur, overcoming his initial horror, which he deals with by chopping down trees, begins to visit him regularly.

After this though Arthur loses interest in Jake and Laura, preferring to simply avoid his brother. He begins to spend more time with Ted Hatchett who still has not spoken to anyone. Arthur tells him stories about his work, the farm, the pig, the cows. Ted does not respond. 

Arthur goes to help the Reverend March fix a generator and considers warning him about Jake and Laura, but decides that no one would believe him because "Jake's lies were "far more convincing than the truth."

Several days later Arthur goes back to sit with Ted and does not say anything, but just sits brooding about Jake and Laura, until Ted asks "How are the pigs?" Which is the first thing he's said since he came home.

The war in Europe ends in May of that year and Arthur goes into town to celebrate. He sees Jake and Laura, but the whole town is a drunken party so he doesn't think much of it. He takes his mother home, but then returns. He stands on the sidelines, watching the soldiers celebrate. "They looked so happy. Happy, and proud of their victory. Their victory, not his." (tk)

Arthur goes to Ted's house and tells him about the war being over. Ted's mother leaves them alone to talk and Ted asks Arthur to get his service revolver out and move it to the bottom drawer. Then he asks Arthur to help him out of bed and over to the floor by the revolver. Arthur helps him and then leaves. 

Jake doesn't come home until very late, but Arthur doesn't pay any attention to him, he's still thinking about Ted, who the Reverend March tells them shot himself. 

Jake dumps Laura, which Arthur watches, but doesn't do anything about. Then two things happen to wake Arthur up. His brother asks to borrow all the money he has, and then Jake disappears, leaving only a note that says "Sorry to go without saying good-bye. Love, Jake."(tk) A few weeks later Laura comes to him to ask if Jake is coming back, he tells her no and she tells him she's pregnant and suddenly Arthur remember Jake coming home on VE day. Laura is distraught and not sure what to do. Arthur tells her to marry him.

The get married, Arthur's mother moves away because she won't be in the same house with Laura. The last section of this chapter catches Arthur's timeline up to Ian's, with Arthur talking about Jake's return. 

### Chapter 13

Ian and his father get a dog which they name Molly, also the name of a dog they had in the past. Old Mr. Johnson shows up despite it being a Saturday, but Ian no longer cares or worries that people are taking advantage of his father. "In the process of correcting Jake’s view of his father’s relationship with the people of Struan he’d corrected his own as well." (tk)

The following week the school guidance counselor tells Ian he must make a decision about where to go the following year. Ian and Pete go fishing and talk about the future. Pete tells Ian he is not leaving Struan, but will stay and open a fishing guide business. Ian feels betrayed and is angry with Pete. Pete calls Ian out on his desire to be a pilot saying, "At least I’m not doing something I don’t want to do just to prove a point." (tk) This makes Ian angry, he asks Pete what he means. Pete says, "go work it out." (tk same)

Ian has another dream of his mother. She tells him she could not "stand the nothingness" (tk same) of Struan. He asks her if it's really nothingness if he's there and the dream mother says simple "go work it out." Which echos Pete's comments earlier in the chapter.

Ian's appointment with Mr. Hardy, the guidance counselor, makes him late to the farm the following day. Arthur's son Carter is looking at the engine of Jake's car, trying to figure out how everything works. Jake doesn't know. Ian and Arthur go out to the fields to plow with the horses. They come back for lunch, but Ian is lost in his head, not paying attention to the Dunns, thinking about his decision to go to medical school and his dreams about his mother.

March Dunn points out that her mother is dropping things and that brings Ian back to the present and he remembers the scene with Jake and Laura and begins to have suspicions about them. He doesn't say anything though. March asks him to sharpen a scythe, which Ian does. Julie Dunn comes in to tell them there's an eagle outside. Everyoone goes outside to look at the Eagle before Ian and Arthur return to work in the fields. 

Ian realizes he's left the sharpening stone in the house and has to go back. When he gets to the house he walks in on Laura in Jake in the kitchen. They are just talking, but she has "her arms up, hands flat against his chest as if she were going to push him away, but she wasn't pushing him away." Ian assumes there is something between them and goes to tell Arthur.

Arthur comes back to the house in a rage, throwing Jake down the stair and out the door. He shoves Jake in the car and tells him to go, but Jake doesn't leave. He tries to reason with Arthur, but Arthur has "the look of someone who had reached the limit, the end of the line." Arthur picks him up and begins to beat Jake against the car until both Laura and Ian try to stop him. Ian succeeds in getting Arthur off Jake and Laura puts Jake in the car. Jake starts the car, hits the gas pedal in reverse and collides with Carter Dunn, who is killed.

### Epilogue

The epilogue jumps forward in time twenty or more years. Ian is Struan's town doctor. He is married, his wife also a doctor in Struan. Arthur Dunn has had a heart attack and is dying. Ian attends to him. They sit in silence, remembering how they sat in silence all those years ago in the fields.

Ian also finally has a real conversation with Laura Dunn. She tell him why she fell for Jake, "he was the most exciting, fascinating person I’d ever met. I was very young, and of course I fell in love with him" (tk). After the funeral, when Jake finally leaves, Arthur asks her is she wants to go with him. She says no, but he asks if she's sure. After Carter's death, she says, "that question has been the hardest thing I've had to live with. The fact that he had to ask it."

Ian assures her that Arthur is a happy man and that Arthur does believe her. Then she asks Ian "are you sure" echoing Arthur's question, and Ian says he is sure.

Ian goes home for dinner and then heads off to fish with Pete. They talk about the huge fish that, all this time later, Pete still has not caught. "But," says Pete, "But he's down there, man. He’s down there."


### Chapters 12- Epilogue Summary

These chapters see events in the lives of both Ian and Arthur taking on an aspect of inevitability, raising the question of how free either are to control their lives. Arthur's inaction makes many events seem inevitable since even though there may be ways of changing them, Arthur will never actually act. We see this in Jake's pursuit of Laura, which Arthur could have, if not stopped, as least derailed slightly by warning Laura's father about Jake's intentions. Arthur does not say anything and Jake gets Laura pregnant and disappears.

This same kind of inaction plays out in the way Arthur helps Ted commit suicide. Arthur doesn't technically do anything at all, just moves Ted's gun and helps Ted out of bed. 

Ian takes a little more charge of his life, finally choosing to become a doctor of his own will, but always unsure how much is his own will and how much is the inevitable outcome of being born the son of a doctor. Again his friend Pete helps him see through the lies he tells himself, especially with regard to becoming a pilot, which Pete sees through long before Ian does.

The final tragic scene that pulls together the timeline and plays out the violence that has been building throughout the book is narrated through Ian's eyes. We never get Arthur's view of what happened, even afterward the epilogue. In Ian's eyes everything that happens is the result of "a number of trivial little incidents...without any one of which everything would have turned out differently."

After Carter's death Ian has to live the rest of his life knowing that he set all those incidents in motion by telling Arthur what he had seen. In the epilogue Laura reveals that, though she may still have had feeling for Jake, she really loved Arthur, which leaves Ian again with the guilt that causes Ian to avoid the Dunns the rest of his life and even to a nervous breakdown in medical school. He also acknowledges that he has never forgiven his mother for leaving his father.

The final scene, itself a kind of inevitability, with Ian and Pete in their boats, fishing, hints that while things have changed for Ian, things also remain the same.

# Character Analysis

Arthur Dunn 

There are two Arthur Dunns in the book. The first, childhood Arthur, is the central protagonist for half of the book and eventually grows into adult Arthur, who is a largely background character in the other half of the novel, which is told though eyes of Ian Christopherson. 

Arthur is repeatedly described as a large powerful man, but simple and quite man. He is portrayed as the quintessential image of the stoic, hard working farmer. Arthur suffers his fate in silence, setting up one of the essential contrasts of the novel -- the difference in dealing with consequences, Arthur's acceptance of them and Jake's denial. Lawson's characterization of Arthur makes him a potent symbol of fatalism, both the positive and negative consequences.

At the same time Arthur suffers much because of his unwillingness to assert himself, particularly in any way that might upset his mother. From the opening when Jake throws a knife into his foot, to over a decade later when Jake seduces Laura, Arthur is made to suffer because he is unwilling to stop Jake. Despite being capable physically, he is incapable emotionally. This never changes in to novel, even in the climatic scene of Arthur throwing Jake out of the house Arthur is just reacting to what the world hands him, he does not have any more control in that scene than in the very first scene in which Jake throws a knife in his foot.

Arthur never contemplates leaving Struan, something almost every other character does. He is bound to it, unable even to sent off to war, thanks to being flat-footed. He is born and dies on the same farm, without, so far as the book allows us to know, ever leaving the immediate area. Rather than being trapped by Struan, Arthur seems a part of it in the same way that the lake and farms are part of it, as if he has always been there and always will be.

Jake Dunn

Jake is Arthur's younger brother, born after his mother has two miscarriages and for that reason, she is very protective of him. Jake is everything Arthur is not -- good looking, outgoing, willing to break rules, and unafraid of confrontation. Arthur becomes Jake's protector when his rule breaking gets him in trouble very early on in life and that continues through the remainder of the book.  Jake is happy to accept and even comes to expect this of Arthur.

Jake is selfish and short-sighted in contrast to Arthur's generosity and concern for long term consequences. Jake is unwilling to help out around the farm, yet secretly craves the responsibility and wants the respect of his father, which he never gets.

Jake's desire to push the boundaries and disregard rules repeatedly gets him in trouble until he learns to make sure the trouble lands on other people. He isn't always able to deflect the consequences of his actions though and ultimately ends up crippled because of it. Jake's impulsiveness and irresponsibility provides nearly all the action in the story. Jake's departure sets in motion Arthur's family, and his return triggers the tragic ending. 

Ian Christopherson

Ian Christopherson is a young high school student trying to find his place in the world and figure out what he wants to do with his life. He is the third Christopherson in the town of Struan, both his father and his grandfather having served as town doctor, a role Ian at first avoids and is irritated by, but later comes to accept. 

Ian is initially obsessed with Laura Dunn, taking a job on the Dunn farm so that he can be closer to her. Over time his unrealistic imaginings of her are supplanted by the real Laura Dunn, though not entirely. Instead of getting closer to Laura Dunn, working on the Dunn farm gets Ian closer to Arthur Dunn. 

Early on in the novel Ian's mother abandons him and his father, running off to the big city with another man, something that Ian never, even as a grown man, forgives her for. As he admits later in the novel, he spends much of the time figuring out what his mother would have done and then deliberately doing the opposite.

Ian represents a bridge over the gulf that separate the hard-working stoicism of Arthur Dunn and the escapist selfishness of Jake Dunn. Most of the novel is concerned with how Ian navigates between these two extremes.

One of the central ways Ian navigates this path is through his relationship with Pete, his friend and member of the Ojiway tribe whose land abuts the town of Struan. At times strained by deteriorating relationships betwen the tribe and town, Pete and Ian's relationship serves to ground Ian in reality, in Struan and in the end helps draw him back to Struan even after Carter's death.

Laura Dunn

Arthur Dunn's wife, Jake Dunn's lover, Laura arrives late in Arthur's timeline and becomes the first (and only) woman he falls in love with. Laura becomes the focus of the rivalry between the brothers and eventually the victim of it, after Jake gets her pregnant and then abandons her. 

Laura accepts Arthur's marriage proposal to avoid scandal and eventually comes to love him, but when Jake returns she admits that she still feels something for him and this leads to the death of their son, Carter Dunn.

Pete

Ian's best friend and fishing partner, Pete is a member of the Ojibway tribe, who have a reservation near Struan. Pete is a stark contrast to Ian, sure of himself, confident in what he loves and what he wants. Pete's experience, while only hinted at indirectly, gives him a maturity and understanding of the world that Ian lacks.

Pete is forever chasing a huge fish that once pulled him overboard while he and Ian were fishing. The fish mirrors Pete's willingness to go deep into the depths of himself than Ian, who, by his own admission, is only able to catch small fish. The book closes with adult Pete and Ian still talking about the fish.

Mr Christopherson (Ian's father)

The town doctor, Ian's father's practice is run out of their home. A quiet man who loves the north, Struan and the wilderness around it, Ian's father lives a quiet but happy life, until his wife leave. Ian and his father grow closer after his mother leaves, but his father also becomes prone to spells of depression that Ian tries to help him through.

Mrs Christopherson (Ian's mother)

Ian's mother does not like Struan, does not like "the north" and runs off with a teacher from Ian's school, going to Toronto to start a new life, abandoning her son and husband. She appears later in the book as a character in Ian's dreams.

Jim Lightfoot

Jim Lightfoot is a local Ojibway man who gets in a fight with and accidentally kills another man. He is imprisoned an becomes a major source of conflict in the Struan community and between Ian and Pete. Eventually Jim Lightfoot escapes from jail and disappears into the wilderness. Ian celebrates along with Pete and the rest of the tribe.

Ted Hatchett

Arthur's friend who is badly mangled in WWII. Ted loses both legs, his arm and his eye. At first he is silent when he returns. Arthur is the only one left to go and see him. He listens to Arthur as he talks and one day begins to speak again. Eventually he asks Arthur to help him kill himself, which Arthur does and Ted shoot himself.

# Themes

Personal Loss

The overwhelming theme of the novel is personal loss. Arthur, whose acceptance of loss bears more than a passing resemblance to the biblical character of Job, is central to this theme. Arthur loses his father, most of his friends, his brother, his mother, and his adopted son. Through all of these loses Arthur soldiers on, though the novel has plenty of examples of people who do not. 

For example, Ted Hatchett, who suffers perhaps the greatest personal loss of anyone in the book, return from war badly mangled, kills himself. Jake, unable to deal with his own losses, flees Struan twice, the later time apparently for good. 

Ian loses his mother and struggles through this loss, ultimately admitting that he can never forgive her, never truly move beyond the loss.

Nature vs Nurture

Another theme running throughout the novel is the tension between nature and nurture. That is the role of fate in the characters lives versus freewill and personal desire. Arthur represents one side of the scale, seemingly content to take what fate hands him and exercising very little will throughout the novel. 

the opposite side of the spectrum is Jake, who refuses to accept whatever role his family might like to see him play. Jake throws everything aside and disappears, leaving only a one line note. That he is cause of a considerable amount of loss in the book, conveys a sense that while you can run from fate, you cannot escape the consequences of doing so.

Between these two extremes is Ian, who starts off wanting to avoid what he sees as his fate -- ending up a small town doctor like his father. While Ian initially feels stifled by fate, he is active in considering it. Ian engages with fate and learns to take an active role in shaping it. So while he does end up a small town doctor back in Struan, it is not simple fate that has put him there, his own freewill has chosen his fate.

Small Town vs Larger World

The novel has another theme that shapes it, the outside world versus the small town of Struan. The outside world is for some a thing to be feared -- the fate of those whose lives are destroyed by WWII reinforces this view -- and for others a thing to be desired, a way to escape the small town fate they refuse to accept. Jake and Ian's mother both leave the small town for the outside world, but both pay a heavy price, suggesting that the outside world demands immense sacrifice.

Pete, the character who most eloquently rejects the outside world, sums up the novel's attitute toward Struan and the north more broadly when he tells Ian, "both leave the small town for the outside world, but both pay a heavy price, suggesting that the outside world demands immense sacrifice.

Pete, the character who most eloquently rejects the outside world, sums up the novel's attitute toward Struan and the north more broadly when he tells Ian, "Everything that matters to me is right... here... I don’t have to go anywhere else to find it."


# Symbols and Motifs

The Lake

The town of Struan is situated near a lake that is never named. Nonetheless the lake becomes a strong symbol of the north country and the idea of Struan itself. Ian describes it as Struan's"strongest asset" and describes as deep and clear, representing a kind of clarity that many of the novel's characters are seeking in their lives. At the same time it's a large body of water, fifty miles long and surrounded by granite hills covered with "spruce and wind-blasted pines," which calls up an image of ruggedness that mirrors the more rugged characters of the book like Arthur, Pete and to a lesser degree Ian as he matures.

The Farm

Arthur Dunn's farm is an anachronism even be the time Ian comes to work on it. Arthur refusing to use a tractor and still plowing his fields with a team of horse is considered eccentric in an age when most farmers long since switched to tractors. The farm becomes a symbol for a way of life that is threatened throughout the book. When WWII starts and many farmers are forced off their land because there's no one left to work it, Arthur turns to POWs to help him and the farm becomes the things that unifies them even as, in the larger world, America and Germany fight.

The farm also represents a refuge for Arthur. It is where he is in his element, where no one, not even Jake questions him and his judgment. Arthur is the absolute master of the farm and he can work it in the silence he prefers.

The Fish

The day Ian gets his canoe for his birthday, he paddles the lake looking for Pete. He find him in their usual fishing spot. Pete flips Ian out of his canoe, but while they're playing around something huge grabs Pete's line and nearly pulls the pole out of hands and Pete over the side with it. The fish gets away, but it becomes a recurring memory the two share that grows into something more symbolic than just a fish. The fish comes to represent the struggles of their lives, the things Ian in particular is chasing. The fish is also a standin the things they cannot know, the things that like the fish, lurk to far below the surface to give a name to, but influence them nonetheless. 

# Quotes 

"Arthur forced his foot to lie flat. 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. The thought had never occurred to him before but suddenly, there it was. Though he couldn't imagine a reason. Surely he was the one who should have done the hating." 

The novel opens with a scene where Jake convinces Arthur to play a game where they throw knives at each other's feet. In the middle of the game Arthur wonders if Jake actually hates him. Whether or not he does is never really answered, though the reason he might revolves around Arthur's relationship with his father, something Jake never gets to have.

"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 that lay in your mind? Simply to do whatever you wanted to do, and damn the consequences."

Arthur looks down at his foot after Jake has thrown a knife through it and the immediately looks up at Jake. This scene in the prologue shows Arthur already second-guessing Jake, unsure of his motives 

"He imagined living in Toronto, or Vancouver or New York. Think of the freedom. You could be whoever you wanted to be. No one expecting anything of you, no one knowing who your parents were, no one caring if you were a brain surgeon or a bum."

Ian begins the book wishing he were somewhere other than Struan, anywhere outside of the stiffeling confines of a small town. 

"'It could be a hundred years,' Pete said, giving his line a sharp jerk and hauling in a perch, 'maybe two hundred, before you get another night as perfect as this for fishing. But there will always, always, be another test.'"

Pete sums up his approach to life for Ian in this scene, the first of many scenes where Ian and Pete fish, or rather Pete fishes and Ian worries, is distracted, talks of his problems and pays very little attention to what he is actually doing. 

"When Jake finally arrived, the outcome of all that pain and fear and grief, he would be so precious to his mother that she could hardly bear it? She carried him around with her all day, holding him tightly, fending off death with the crook of her arm."

Very early on Arthur recognizes that his mother loves Jake more than him, which Arthur doesn't seem to be too bothered by, like so many other things in the book, he simply accepts it, even in this scene when he is very young.

"'If I won’t go with you, will you go anyway? Will you go without me?'
This time, struggling with the shaking of her voice, she said, 'Darling, you do not know what it has been like, all these years.'
By which he understood, finally, that he was not important to her. Not that important."

The scene is the source of Ian's hatred for his mother, not that she divorced his father, but that she is willing to leave Ian behind in the process.

"All the way through high school Arthur didn't have a girlfriend."

Arthur is shy with nearly everyone, though more so with women than men. His inability to talk to women leaves him even more alone after all his friends are shipped off to WWII.

"He loved Saturday nights. The rest of the week had nothing going for it whatsoever. The kids he sat beside at school—those who had stayed on after they were sixteen—were mostly nice enough, but he didn't belong with them."

Arthur doesn't graduate with the rest of friends. His mother forces him to stay in school despite the fact that he hates it and is far too old to continue. He begins to live for Saturday nights, the only time he gets to see his friends.

"Arthur didn't hate his brother, or not very often. Mostly he just didn't understand him. How did they get to be in the same family? What did Jake want? Because Arthur definitely got the feeling Jake wanted something; you could see it sometimes: there was a fretfulness, a frustration—something indefinable behind the eyes."

This passage shows Arthur growing out the sibling rivalry that has defined his youth. He still have to deal with Jake wanting to compete with him, but Arthur no longer cares about the outcome.

"April. The wind turned around and blew from the south and like magic the snow sagged, collapsed on itself, and melted away. The air smelled of damp earth and things trying to grow, trying to force their way up out of the still-frozen ground."

Lawson is adept at conjuring strong images of the landscape in very few words, such as this one where the visual, tactile and even smell combine to give a complete picture of spring in Struan in just a few lines.

"Jake loved that. Loved proving to Arthur and the world just how stupid Arthur was. How gullible. He never got tired of proving it.
'Art!'—his voice a shriek—'I’m going to fall!'
'Good,' Arthur said. A word that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
He felt Jake fall. Felt his weight leave the bridge. Just like that."

In this scene Jake's habit of pushing Arthur, taunting him, taking his uncomplaining acquiescence for granted finally comes back to haunt him. The moment Arthur picks to stop falling for Jake's schemes, Jake falls and breaks his legs on the rocks below and is crippled. Arthur spends the rest of the novel feeling guilty for saying good.

"You shouldn't have to feel guilty about living your own life. You shouldn't have to be responsible for your parents’ happiness. It wasn't fair."

In this scene Ian says what Arthur might also say, since he too spends his time protecting Jake to make his mother happy. In Ian's case he is worried about his father's depression after his mother leaves them.

"Arthur wondered what Germany would look like, or wherever they ended up. Not as beautiful as Canada, that was a safe bet. He got a kind of ache mid-chest at the thought. Homesick already, and he was only fifty miles from home."

This scene is as far from Struan as Arthur ever gets in the course of the book. After being rejected by the Army for having flat feet, he returns to Struan and never leaves again.

"There must be dozens of people in Struan who had been all the way through school with the boy who was now their doctor. One day you’d be gouging each other’s eyes out in the schoolyard and the next you’d be obediently saying 'aahhh' so he could look at your tonsils, or pulling down your pants so he could stick a needle in your ass."

In this scene the man Jim Lightfoot may or may not have stabbed has just died and Ian's father is arguing with Gerry Moynihan about removing Lightfoot's handcuff. Ian realizes that Moynihan and his father probably went to school together in Struan and have probably know each other all their lives. This quote captures one of the aspects of small town life that Ian initially hopes to escape.

"Everything seemed normal. The fact was—Ian saw this suddenly—everything was normal. His father was so familiar with death that it didn’t warrant discussion. It wasn't a shocking or unusual occurrence, it was a commonplace. Which was the most shocking thing of all."

After Ian's father can't save the man and he dies, Ian tries to sort out how he feels about it. He is taken aback by the realization that for a doctor, death is a more familiar part of life than it is for most.

"Otto was looking from one to the other of them. Arthur couldn't help noticing, couldn't suppress a small surge of pride that Mr. Luntz recognized that he was part of the picture now."

With his three sons off in the war, Otto Luntz asks if the Dunn family will work some of his fields. Arthur's father agrees to do it, but the fact that he consults with Arthur in making the decision is one of the few moments in the novel that Arthur's skills are recognized.

"His legs were shuddering with the strain. What if he could not keep it up? What was the point of his size and strength if he could not keep the weight of the tractor from crushing his father?"

In order to work the additional fields, Arthur's father agrees to use Otto Luntz's tractor. Taking it for a drive the first day he accidentally rolls it into a ditch and is kill. Arthur, who tries to save him, has to face up to the fact that his strength will not always save him and those around him.

"Jake said, 'I thought when I grew up and got a job somewhere, doing something important, he'd see I wasn't useless. You want to know the truth? I hate him for dying before he learned I wasn't useless. That’s the truth.'"

When Jake and Arthur's father is killed suddenly in a tractor accident, Jake reveals how much he wanted his father's approval. While selfish in Jake's way, this is the only moment in the book that he overtly reveals his feelings toward his father.

"'Toronto’s nothing. How about somewhere a little more exciting? How about New York? Los Angeles? Hell, why not go to China? They have universities there. See the world!'
Ian stared at him, and Jake laughed. 'Got you thinking, haven't I?'"

When Jake first arrives back at the farm, he sees Ian as little like him and encourages him to go out into the world. In doing so he makes Ian realize that that even Ian's conception of the "outer world" is limited, since Toronto is as far away as Ian has ever considered going.

"He was a city type. Sure of himself. Confident. Ian envied him that. He looked like someone who had no doubts about himself or where he was going. Someone who knew exactly what he wanted out of life. Someone who had all the answers."

Ian's initial perception of Jake is someone who has everything Ian wants. Over time though, as Ian learns more about him and more about the his history, it changes his perception.

"No reply from Jake. Arthur had to see his expression, so he looked up.
If only he hadn't done that. If only he had just stayed as he was. Swallowed his potato, kept his head down. If only. But he raised his head, just fractionally, just an inch or so, and the movement caught Jake's eye."

In this scene Arthur's tiny movement while eating catches Jake's eye and Jake see a new opportunity to compete with Arthur (over Laura). This also mirrors several scenes later that mention both Arthur and Arthur's father not looking up while eating.

"He was looking at Arthur out of one eye so savagely bright it made Arthur think of an animal caught in a trap, an animal you’d kill as quickly as you could to put an end to its pain. Arthur turned around and left the room."

Arthur goes to see Ted Hachett who has been badly mangled in the war, missing his legs, one arm and one eye. In this first encounter Arthur immediately perceives how Ted will end (Arthur later helps him kill himself).

"He was going to have to deal with Jake directly. It made him sweat to think about it but he could see no other course of action. He would tell him straight out that if he touched Laura he would kill him. He would make sure that Jake believed him."

Despite this scene in Arthur's imagination, he never actually lifts a finger to stop Jake from pursuing Laura until much later when he and Laura are already married.

"After a while he said, 'I don’t know how else to put it, man, except to say that everything I care about is here. Everything that matters to me is right…here.'
'But that’s because it's all you know!' Ian said. 'Jesus, Pete! You don't even know what else is out there!'
'No,' Pete said. 'But I know what's important to me. And I know I don't have to go anywhere else to find it.'"

Ian and Pete spend several scenes discussing what they're going to do with their lives, though it is mostly Ian who talks. In this scene Pete finally reveals that he plans to stay in Struan, which Ian takes a betrayal. Pete's defence of his decision also sums up the theme of Struan versus the outside world.

"Afterward, when he looked back on the events of that afternoon, it seemed to him that there was an inevitability about them, as if fate had arranged a number of trivial little incidents—a series of them, like stepping-stones—without any one of which everything would have turned out differently."

While Arthur's life seems to have run entirely on fate, Ian has resisted accepting what he seems to think might be him fate in any way until the incident that closes the book, when Jake accidentally kills his own son, Carter Dunn. In this opening frame for the scene, Ian finally concedes that fate seem to be driving the all down a path.

"It wasn’t until he saw Arthur’s face that Ian began to feel uneasy. Arthur hadn’t said a word but there was something in his eyes that Ian hadn’t seen before in anyone, far less in Arthur. It was the look of someone who had reached the limit, the end of the line—as if he were teetering right on the edge of a cliff within himself, and if he went over, there would be no telling what came next."

Ian doesn't think through his decision to tell Arthur that he saw Jake and Laura together until Arthur is already in a rage and throwing Jake out of the house. This scene is also the first and only time Arthur confronts Jake about anything, despite all the times he's wanted to, which makes his pent up rage a formidable thing to release all at once.

"Sleep became a place to avoid at all costs, and at the end of his second year at medical school he had a nervous breakdown. Even with his father’s help, the climb back to health took a long time, and it was more than a year before he was well enough to return to Toronto and continue his degree."

In this remembrance in the epilogue, Ian reveals that the losses of the Dunn family have extended to his own life as well. Despite leaving Struan for a while, it, and the life altering events of his adolescence never leaves him.

"'How’s it going?' Ian said. There was a fair-sized pike sloshing around in the bottom of the boat, teeth grinning wickedly.
'So-so,' Pete said.
'Any sign of him?' He tied the canoe to the rowboat and climbed in.
'Nope. But he’s down there, man. He’s down there.'"

The final lines of the book see Ian and Pete back in their boats, grown men now, but still fishing together when they can. The more things seem to have changed for everyone in the story, the more they also remains the same. The book ends back in the north, with Ian and Pete still chasing the large fish, whatever it may have been, that got away, but, more importantly, is still out there.

#Essay questions

1. Arthur and Jake are most obviously opposites for most of the book, and in some ways mirror the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. However, they also share some common traits like a desire to please the parent that neglects them. Jake constantly seeks his father's approval, Arthur worries about what his mother will think of him. What are some other ways in which Arthur and Jake are similar, despite their obvious differences?

2. Ian starts off the novel very much infatuated with Laura Dunn, but as he matures he becomes less so. How does Ian's concept of the feminine ideal change throughout the novel? How does his projection of this ideal affect the way he relates to Laura, as well as to his mother and his girlfriend?

3. The novel occupies itself primarily with the world of Struan, but the outside world makes intrusions here and there. What are some of the ways in which characters are affected by the larger world and how does their reaction to those events help shape them in the course of the novel?

4. There are significant difference between the two timelines (Arthur and Jake's boyhood vs Ian's), how does the novel use these to portray the changing of the world both in Struan and out if it?

5. The prologue ends with a question that shapes the rest of the novel. When Jake throws the knife and it hits Arthur's foot, Arthur looks up to see surprise on Jake's face. He wonders why he's surprised. One possibility Arthur considers is that Jake is surprised at "how easy it was to give in to an impulse, and carry through the thought that lay in your mind? Simply to do whatever you wanted to do, and damn the consequences." How would you answer Arthur's question? Why do you think Jake's is surprised? By the end of the novel do you think Jake has changed? How and why?

6. Although the three major characters of the novel are men, the women of the novel tend to drive the action, whereas the men simply react. Do you agree or disagree with this assessment? Why?

7. The title of the novel refers to the bridge that Jakes falls from, meaning that Jake and Arthur never do make it to the other side. They seem, until the last chapter, to still be on the bridge, so to speak. Do you think Arthur and Jake, or Ian or Laura ever make it to the other side of the bridge, past their grief? 

8. The role of fate seems to drive much of the action in the novel, but Ian and Arthur have very different approaches to fate. Compare and contrast how Arthur and Ian deal with the events that life hands them and how their approach affects the outcome and their happiness.

9. Shortly after they meet, Laura tells Arthur that she doesn't believe that God cares about humanity. Her belief seems to grow out of her personal tragedy, but it echos Ian's similar statement after the logger dies in front of him that, "It felt like a betrayal. Like a monstrous joke on the part of God." If the characters are trapped by a fate driven by a god that does not care, do any of them manage to escape? If so, how are they able to overcome their fate?

10. The women of the novel are all opaque to the reader. We never get to see or hear their prospective on the events that affect them. While every female character is different, they come off in similar ways: distant, cheating in one form or another and seemingly incapable of making good choices. Why do you think this is and how does it affect your reading of the novel?