Skip to main content

Mary Lawson

Biography

Mary Lawson

Mary Lawson was born and brought up in a small farming community in Ontario. She is the author of the national and international bestselling novels CROW LAKE, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE and ROAD ENDS. CROW LAKE was a New York Times bestseller and was chosen as a Book of the Year by The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She also is the author of the novels A TOWN CALLED SOLACE and SOLACE IN WINTER. Lawson lives in England but returns to Canada frequently.

Mary Lawson

Books by Mary Lawson

Solace in Winter
by Mary Lawson - Fiction, Historical Fiction

It is deep winter, 1969. As the Vietnam War drives young men north across the Canadian border, widower Jack’s quiet life is overturned by two accidents that happen on the bend in the road into town. First comes a dog in a bad way. Next a draft dodger, seriously injured, lying in the snow. Suddenly, Jack’s cabin is busy with a growing cast of characters --- and all the baggage, dreams and desires they’re carrying. The atmosphere chills when Jack’s daughter, Sally, drops by one day and doesn’t like what she sees. What Sally does next changes everything, for everyone but herself.

Road Ends
by Mary Lawson - Fiction

With her mother ill and her father passive, Megan becomes the defacto mother, housekeeper, and lynchpin of her household. Her parents and out-of-control brothers depend on her completely. One day, Megan has had enough and packs her backs for London. ROAD ENDS weaves Megan’s life with the consequences of her departure, particularly for her 4-year-old brother Adam, who has retreated into himself out of insecurity and neglect.

The Other Side of the Bridge
by Mary Lawson - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Two brothers, Arthur and Jake Dunn, are the sons of a farmer in the mid-1930s, when life is tough and another world war is looming. Arthur is reticent, solid, dutiful and set to inherit the farm and his father’s character; Jake is younger, attractive, mercurial and dangerous to know --- the family misfit. When a beautiful young woman comes into the community, the fragile balance of sibling rivalry tips over the edge. Then there is Ian, the family’s next generation, and far too sure he knows the difference between right and wrong. By now it is the '50s, and the world has changed --- a little, but not enough. These two generations in the small town of Struan, Ontario, are tragically interlocked, linked by fate and community but separated by a war that devours its young men.

Crow Lake
by Mary Lawson - Fiction

Set against the wild terrain of northern Ontario, where heartbreak and hardship are mirrored in the landscape, this universal drama of love and misunderstanding recounts a family' tragic and moving past. Poignant, funny, and utterly unforgettable, CROW LAKE is a deceptively simple masterpiece of literary fiction.