Summary
Summary
"Read this astonishing novel . . . The magic of his prose equals the horror of Johnston's story." --The Washington Post
Don't miss DISTANT SONS, the new literary thriller from Tim Johnston, available now.
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 only Sean 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.
"A compelling thriller that is both creepy and literary . . . Descent is not 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 a great story and a great piece of writing? Gone." --Esquire
"[A] dazzling debut . . . Exquisitely crafted." --The Dallas Morning News
"Incredibly powerful, richly atmospheric." --Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[An] engulfing thriller-cum-western." --The New York Times Book Review
"Brilliant . . . As gripping as any Everest expedition." --Peter Heller, author of The Dog Stars
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
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 SeanAngela barely registers for the readermakes 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. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
When a teenage girl, early in Johnston's debut thriller, voices sympathy for the cannibalistic fate of the snowbound Donner party, would it be presumptuous to suspect that in due time she'll be compelled to make some pretty unsavory survival choices of her own? The speaker, a recent high school graduate and champion runner named Caitlin, seems primed for adversity. One feels less sanguine about the self-preservation abilities of her addiction-prone family after Caitlin's disappearance during a vacation in the Rockies, an event that occurs in plain sight of her kid brother, Sean. Caitlin's mother descends into pills, while her father, a carpenter hobbled by missing fingers from a drinking mishap, abandons his family to keep vigil at the Colorado ranch of an elderly friend Sean, palpably traumatized by his failure to keep his sister from harm's way, develops a rescue complex that gets him into trouble of his own and, together with many other characters, inhales enough cigarette smoke to fog up all seven seasons of "Mad Men." Johnston's descriptive prose attains a level of visceral brio, despite a self-conscious piling on of heartbeat imagery that seems weirdly at odds with all those smoldering cigarettes. While the author periodically checks in on Caitlin's desperate plight, it's the men - bullies and stymied heroes alike - who power this engulfing thriller-cum-western, which is at its most potent in the adversarial banter of a couple of guys, sniffing around each other like pit bulls.