Waste-full Crossings: Thomas King’s Rubbishy Border

Thomas King’s Truth & Bright Water begins with an illusory image of a smooth
border crossing that never takes place, anticipating the fatal, failed border crossing that
constitutes the novel’s tragic climax. King foregrounds the unfinished and wasted state of the
only bridge “serving” the cross-border community:
At a distance, the bridge between Truth and Bright Water looks whole and complete,
a pale thin line, delicate and precise, bending over the Shield and slipping back into
the land like a knife. But if you walk down the coulees and stand in the shadows of
the deserted columns and the concrete arches, you can look up through the open
planking and the rusting webs of iron mesh, and see the sky. (1)