Road Ends

He listened as their voices faded into the rumble of the falls. He was thinking about the lynx. The way it had looked at him, acknowledging his existence, then passing out of his life like smoke. . . It was the first thing—the only thing—that had managed, if only for a moment, to displace from his mind the image of the child. He had carried that image with him for a year now, and it had been a weight so great that sometimes he could hardly stand.Mary Lawson’s beloved novels, Crow Lake and The Other Side of the Bridge, have delighted legions of readers around the world. The fictional, northern Ontario town of Struan, buried in the winter snows, is the vivid backdrop to her breathtaking new novel.  Roads End brings us a family unravelling in the aftermath of tragedy: Edward Cartwright, struggling to escape the legacy of a violent past; Emily, his wife, cloistered in her room with yet another new baby, increasingly unaware of events outside the bedroom door; Tom, their eldest son, twenty-five years old but home again, unable to come to terms with the death of a friend; and capable, formidable Megan, the sole daughter in a household of eight sons, who for years held the family together but has finally broken free and gone to England, to try to make a life of her own.  Roads End is Mary Lawson at her best. In this masterful, enthralling, tender novel, which ranges from the Ontario silver rush of the early 1900s to swinging London in the 1960s, she gently reveals the intricacies and anguish of family life, the push and pull of responsibility and individual desire, the way we can face tragedy, and in time, hope to start again.ReviewPraise for Mary Lawson:“Soon after Mary Lawson’s first novel was published in 2002, she joined an elite group that includes Mavis Gallant and Margaret Laurence: female Canadian expatriate writers whose work is as popular with critics as it is with readers.... Lawson is an expert manipulator of family dynamics.... Lawson’s northern Gothic is fascinating.” —Winnipeg Free PressPraise for The Other Side of the Bridge1 NATIONAL BESTSELLERLONGLISTED 2006 – Man Booker Prize FINALIST 2007 – Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize“I could not put it down, but perhaps [it is] better to say that I could not let it go or that it would not let me go.... The novel is infused with warmth and affection.... Lawson transported me into a place that I know does not exist by taking me deep down into the story of a family whose fate is inexorable and universal. Her reality became mine.” —The Globe and Mail“An excellent novel.... Lawson’s gifts are enormous, especially her ability to write a literary work in a popular style. Her dialogue has perfect pitch, yet I’ve never read anyone better at articulating silence. Best of all, Lawson creates the most quotable images in Canadian literature.” —Toronto Star“Lawson beautifully skirts the clichés of sibling rivalry embedded since Cain and Abel, with a story that aches with its inevitability and yet suggests hope.” —New York Daily News“Like her fellow Canadians Alice Munro and the late Carol Shields, Lawson is a master of the quiet moment made significant, with a tremendous eye for detail.” —The ScotsmanAbout the AuthorMary Lawson was born and brought up in a small farming community in Ontario. She is the author of two previous novels, Crow Lake and The Other Side of the Bridge, both of them bestsellers. She lives in England but returns to Canada frequently.  Crow Lake was a CBC Canada Reads Canadian Bestseller of the Decade, and was chosen Book of the Year by The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, Sunday Times, Washington Post, among others, and was a Heather’s Pick. The Other Side of the Bridge was also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.