Descent: A Novel

by Tim Johnston

Overview

The Rocky Mountains have cast their spell over the Courtlands, who are taking a family vacation before their daughter leaves for college. But when Caitlin and her younger brother, Sean, go out for an early morning run and onlySean returns, the mountains become as terrifying as they are majestic. Written with a precision that captures every emotion, every moment of fear, as each member of the family searches for answers, "Descent" races like an avalanche toward its heart-pounding conclusion. Read this astonishing novel . . .The magic of his prose equals the horror of Johnston s story. " The Washington Post" A compelling thriller that is both creepy and literary . . . "Descent" isnot just a mystery. It is an emotional story of evil, fear, acceptance and irony. " The Denver Post" " "What makes the novel unforgettable is its sense of character, its deliberate, unadorned prose and Johnston s unflinching exploration of human endurance, physical and psychological. " Miami Herald" A super-charged, addictive read. " The Missourian" An original and psychologically deep thriller. " Outside "magazine Outstanding . . . The days when you had to choose between agreat story and a great piece of writing? Gone. " Esquire" [A

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616204778
Publisher:	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date:	12/01/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	402
Sales rank:	210,242
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

TIM JOHNSTON is the author of the debut adult novel Descent, the story collection Irish Girl, and the young adult novel Never So Green. Published in 2009, the stories in Irish Girl won an O. Henry Prize, the New Letters Award for Writers, and the Gival Press Short Story Award, while the collection itself won the 2009 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. In 2005 the title story, “Irish Girl,” was included in the David Sedaris anthology of favorites Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules. Johnston’s stories have also appeared in New England Review, New Letters, the Iowa Review, the Missouri Review, DoubleTake, Best Life Magazine, and Narrative Magazine, among others. He holds degrees from the University of Iowa and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He currently teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Memphis.

Read an Excerpt

THE PHONE IN his hand was ringing. For how long? He read the screen with illogical dread.

“It’s Sean,” he said, and his wife said nothing.

THEY'D LEFT THE aspens and stepped into a high, intense sunlight, their shadows thrown back on the blacktop. The morning had burned away. The air was sere and smelled of weeping sap and of the brown, desiccated needles. They’d unfolded the map and tried to get their bearings. In a moment, and for the first time that day, they heard an engine, and then a gaining thump-beat of music, and above them at the curve there banked into view a truck, or a jeep, or something in between, some mountain breed they didn’t know, and it was coming and Caitlin said, “Get over here,” and Sean crabwalked himself and the bike into the scrub growth and wildflowers while the strange vehicle, all sunlight and bass, veered wide of them. In the window was a face, a man’s jaw, yellow lenses fixing on them for a long moment before the jeep-thing passed on and, reaching the crest of the road, dropped away, body and engine and music and all.

They’d set off again then, and when they came around the bend there was another road, unpaved, intersecting the blacktop at an oblique angle like an X, and without hesitating and without consulting him, Caitlin simply took it. And although the road was unmarked, and although it appeared as though it would take them higher up rather than down, he said nothing. Later, he would think about that. He would remember the shrine of the woods. The graves. He would see the Virgin’s face and her mutilated blessing and he would remember thinking they should pray before her just the same, like the right reverend said, just in case. Forty days was forty days. But Caitlin had already been on the path, moving toward the road. She was wearing a white sleeveless top, white shorts with the word "Badgers" bannered in cherry red across her bottom, pink and white Adidas, and for a moment, in that place, she had looked not like herself but like some blanched and passing spirit. A cold wanderer around whom the air chilled and the birds shuddered and the leaves of the aspens yellowed and fell.
 
HE RAISED THE phone and said, “Hello, Sean,” and a man’s voice said, “Is this Mr. Courtland?” and Grant’s head jerked as if struck.

“Yes. Who is this?”

At these words, the change in his body, Angela came around to see his face. He met her eyes and looked away, out the window. The man on the phone identified himself in some detail, but all Grant heard was the word sheriff.

“What’s happened?” he asked. “Where’s Sean?” There was a pain in his forearm and he looked to see the white claw fastened there. He pried at it gently.

“He’s here at the medical center in Granby, Mr. Courtland,” said the sheriff. “He’s a tad banged up, but the doctor says he’ll be fine. I found his wallet and this phone in his—”

“What do you mean a tad—” He glanced at Angela and stopped himself. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean it looks like he got himself in some kind of accident up there on the mountain, Mr. Courtland. I ain’t had a chance to talk to him yet, they doped him up pretty good for the . . . Well, you can talk to the doctor in a second here. But first—”

“But he’s all right,” Grant said.

“Oh, his leg’s banged up pretty good. But he was wearing that helmet. He’ll be all right. He had some good luck up there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he could of laid there a lot longer, but it happened some folks come by on their bikes.”

Grant’s heart was hammering in his skull. He couldn’t think—his son lying there, up there, on the mountain, hurt—

“Mr. Courtland,” said the sheriff. “Where are you all at?”

There was something in the man’s tone. Grant shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“Well, sir. We found your boy way up there on the mountain, on a rental bike. So I’m just wondering, sir, where you’re at.”

“Caitlin,” Angela said suddenly, and Grant’s heart leapt and he said, “Yes. Let me speak to my daughter. Let me speak to Caitlin.”

“Your daughter . . . ?” said the other man, then was silent. In the silence was the sound of his breathing. The sound of him making an adjustment to his sheriff ’s belt. The sound of a woman’s voice paging unintelligibly down the empty hospital corridor.

When he spoke again he sounded like some other man altogether.

“Mr. Courtland,” he said, and Grant stepped toward the window as though he would walk through it. He’d taken the representations of the mountains on the resort maps, with their colorful tracery of runs and trails and lifts, as the mountains themselves—less mountains than playgrounds fashioned into the shapes of mountains by men and money. Now he saw the things themselves, so green and massive, humped one upon the other like a heaving sea. Angela stopped him physically, her thumbs in his biceps. She raised on her toes that she might hear every word. “Mr. Courtland,” said the sheriff. “Your son came in alone.”

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/13/2014
In Johnston’s sorrowful and suspenseful first adult novel, a family is forced to face its worst nightmare when one of its members goes missing. Caitlin Courtland, an 18-year-old runner about to enter college on a track scholarship, is vacationing with her family in the Rockies when she fails to come back from an early morning run. Over the course of the next two years, the family fractures as no sign of Caitlin is ever found. Grant Courtland, Caitlin’s father, remains in the Rockies, while mother Angela tries to pick up the pieces back home in Wisconsin, where she eventually makes a failed attempt at suicide. Meanwhile, Caitlin’s younger brother, Sean, drives aimlessly around the country, getting in and out of trouble. Although it begins as one more variation on Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, a late-in-the-novel coincidence sends the narrative in a new direction and turns it into a survival story involving a character who, heretofore, has played a relatively minor part in the drama. Johnston (Irish Girl) has a poet’s eye for the majestic and forbidding nature of the Rockies, and a sociologist’s understanding of how people act under pressure. He also has a knack for creating characters that the reader will come to care about, no matter how flawed they are. Combining domestic drama with wilderness adventure, Johnston has created a hybrid novel that is as emotionally satisfying as it is viscerally exciting. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

“[A] twisty thriller about a family grappling with loss” —O: The Oprah Magazine

“An original and psychologically deep thriller.” —Outside Magazine

“Descent is the best novel I've read in a long time. Unlike most books that fall into the category of Page Turner, this one also falls in the category of Writing So Good You Can't Even Believe It. Johnston has a superhuman gift for watching and listening to the world and rendering, on the page, its beauty and savagery with such detail and power that the story feels almost more like memory than something read. I was so absorbed in the final incredible fifty pages that I missed my flight to La Guardia.” —Mary Roach, author of Gulp

“Lyrical and hypnotic, Descent is a pulse-pounding thriller of the first order. But it's also a gorgeously written, thought-provoking, and haunting novel about family, survival, and the power of a single choice.  You'll be in Johnston's unrelenting narrative grip until the final page, and his story will stay with you long after it's done. A truly captivating read.” —Lisa Unger, author of In the Blood

“Johnston has a poet’s eye for the majestic and forbidding nature of the Rockies, and a sociologist’s understanding of how people act under pressure. He also has a knack for creating characters that the reader will come to care about . . . Combining domestic drama with wilderness adventure, Johnston has created a hybrid novel that is as emotionally satisfying as it is viscerally exciting.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Tim Johnston’s achievement with Descent is to take the most sensationalistic of topics--Child abducted! Every parent’s worst nightmare!--and use it to tell a story so beautiful, so grounded, and so graceful. Every moment of this book feels real and truthful; every character feels like an actual human being; every plot twist feels honestly earned. This is a book I’ll be recommending to people for years.” —Ben Winters, author of World of Trouble: The Last Policeman

“Tim Johnston has crafted a mesmerizing, beautifully written thriller that will engulf you like a snow storm in the Rockies. The grief and confusion of this family undone by loss feels absolutely, heartbreakingly real; the mystery of what has become of Caitlin will keep you up all night, turning pages frantically right through the spellbinding conclusion.” —Jennifer McMahon, author of The Winter People

“Descent is nothing short of miraculous. Tim Johnston knows secrets about families--about mothers and daughters, fathers and sons--and knows how to render them on the page with heartbreaking beauty and lyricism. Most amazing of all, Johnston does this within the context of a riveting literary thriller of the can’t-stop-turning-the-page, stay-up-all-night variety. An amazing achievement.” —Alice LaPlante, author of A Circle of Wives

“Tim Johnston has done a great job not just in creating his characters, but creating the character of the Courtland family. If you enjoy vivid writing, intelligent plots, and gnawing your knuckles, you will love Descent.” —Susan Isaacs, author of Goldberg Variations

“Easily one of the best literary thrillers I've ever read. Descent has it all: heart-pounding suspense, masterful plotting, great characters, superb writing, and an ending that will leave you gasping for air. Tim Johnston juggles his characters with ease, subverts the reader's expectations at every turn, and delivers the kind of suspense that will keep you awake all night. But what impresses me the most is his rare and unswerving compassion for his otherwise forsaken characters and his preternatural ability to inhabit their hearts and minds.” —Jonathan Evison, author of The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

“Like a punch to the heart, Johnston’s darkly addictive story about loss, hope and all the ways we struggle to survive, stuns you in a way you can’t possibly forget. With writing as dazzling as fresh snow on the Rockies, and an understanding of people that makes them live and breathe on the page, this edgy, literary thrill-ride is still haunting me days after finishing it.” —Caroline Leavitt, author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You

“Tim Johnston has managed a rare feat: a poignant, heartbreaking story that picks the reader up by the neck and never lets go. From the beginning to the surprising end, Descent is a relentless page-turner, and one of the best books I've read this year.” —Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Named Zippy and Iodine

From the Publisher

“Descent is the best novel I've read in a long time. Unlike most books that fall into the category of Page Turner, this one also falls in the category of Writing So Good You Can't Even Believe It. Johnston has a superhuman gift for watching and listening to the world and rendering, on the page, its beauty and savagery with such detail and power that the story feels almost more like memory than something read. I was so absorbed in the final incredible fifty pages that I missed my flight to La Guardia.” —Mary Roach, author of Gulp

“Lyrical and hypnotic, Descent is a pulse-pounding thriller of the first order. But it's also a gorgeously written, thought-provoking, and haunting novel about family, survival, and the power of a single choice. You'll be in Johnston's unrelenting narrative grip until the final page, and his story will stay with you long after it's done. A truly captivating read.” —Lisa Unger, author of In the Blood

“Tim Johnston has crafted a mesmerizing, beautifully written thriller that will engulf you like a snow storm in the Rockies. The grief and confusion of this family undone by loss feels absolutely, heartbreakingly real; the mystery of what has become of Caitlin will keep you up all night, turning pages frantically right through the spellbinding conclusion.” —Jennifer McMahon, author of The Winter People

“Descent is nothing short of miraculous. Tim Johnston knows secrets about families--about mothers and daughters, fathers and sons--and knows how to render them on the page with heartbreaking beauty and lyricism. Most amazing of all, Johnston does this within the context of a riveting literary thriller of the can’t-stop-turning-the-page, stay-up-all-night variety. An amazing achievement.” —Alice LaPlante, author of A Circle of Wives

“Like a punch to the heart, Johnston’s darkly addictive story about loss, hope and all the ways we struggle to survive, stuns you in a way you can’t possibly forget. With writing as dazzling as fresh snow on the Rockies, and an understanding of people that makes them live and breathe on the page, this edgy, literary thrill-ride is still haunting me days after finishing it.” —Caroline Leavitt, author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You

“Tim Johnston has managed a rare feat: a poignant, heartbreaking story that picks the reader up by the neck and never lets go. From the beginning to the surprising end, Descent is a relentless page-turner, and one of the best books I've read this year.” —Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Named Zippy and Iodine

Review quotes

2014-11-06
Johnston tracks the dissolution of a family following the disappearance of the teenage daughter during a Colorado vacation.Grant and Angela Courtland's marriage might not be rock solid, but it's working when they take their two children, 18-year-old college-bound track star Caitlin and shy 15-year-old Sean, on vacation in the Colorado Rockies. Biking with Caitlin during an early morning mountain run, Sean crashes and breaks his leg. With no cell service and no help for miles, Caitlin hesitantly accepts a ride from a stranger who offers to drive her into town. That's the last time she's seen, and with his injuries, Sean isn't much help in identifying her abductor. Time passes too quickly yet with excruciating slowness as the family tries, and fails, to pick up the pieces as the weeks become months with no sign of Caitlin. Angela returns to the family's Wisconsin home, while Grant and Sean remain in Colorado, apparently in an effort to find Caitlin (though little actual searching seems to take place). Caitlin's fate, or at least an inkling of it, is revealed early, deflating much of the ensuing story's suspense. Sean strikes out on his own, going on an aimless cross-country odyssey before ending up back in Colorado, where Grant is helping an elderly man look after his land, perpetually hoping for news of Caitlin. Neither Grant nor Sean—Angela barely registers for the reader—makes for a compelling lead character, both laconic to the point of annoyance, and while Caitlin's ordeal is chilling, it's not enough to buoy this overwritten yet occasionally poignant tale.

Kirkus Reviews