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2024-05-12 10:56 am

Descent: A Novel

by Tim Johnston

Hardcover, 2015

Status

Available

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Publication

Algonquin Books (2015), Edition: 1, 384 pages

Description

"Descent, the story of a family undone by the disappearance of a daughter who went out for a morning run and didn't come back, marks the adult fiction debut of a remarkable young writer. Stunning in its emotional impact, Descent is a compulsively readable page-turner with a strong literary sensibility. The girl's vanishing--on a sunny, late-summer vacation morning--all the more devastating for its mystery, is the beginning the family's harrowing journey down increasingly divergent and solitary paths, until all that continues to bind them to each other are the questions they can never bring themselves to ask: At what point does a family stop searching? At what point does a girl stop fighting for her life? In the weeks and months that follow, hope leads to disillusionment, and each of them--father, mother, son--withdraws into emotional isolation, individually assessing the blame and assuming the responsibility for their collective loss. Haunting and unforgettable, Descent is a novel that will grab the reader's heart and mind, and will linger there long after the last page is turned" --… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member bagambo

DNF. I could barely get through twenty pages of this book. I had heard so many great things about Descent, so when I won a copy I was thrilled. I was eager to dive right in, but alas the writing did not thrill me in the least. This was one book that did not live up to the hype (or at least the

twenty pages I read certainly didn't).

LibraryThing member lisabee

Had a really difficult time with this book, and couldn't finish it. It didn't draw me in at all, with characters I found grating, and narration that just didn't work for me. I've seen so many reviews that call this book riveting or brilliant, but I didn't see it. Maybe I'll try again when I'm

sitting on a beach in Hawaii. Or maybe not.

LibraryThing member bnbookgirl

Thoroughly enjoyed this book for many reason. Great characters whose stories are told through a terrible crime. I loved every character in the Courtland family. I also enjoyed the fact the ending was good, but not everything was perfect. Not a happily every after. That makes the novel so much more

realistic. The setting, (Colorado Rockies) is of course stunning as well. This story could happen to anyone and that is what makes it so intriguing to read. There is good fodder here for book clubs as well. Highly recommend this book.

LibraryThing member leaseylease

I found the beginning and end of the book thrilling, but was bored silly by the middle. I got the general gist of the family falling apart after the daughter/sister disappears, but there seemed to be way too much detail about their everyday existence. Also, I didn't like the beginning of each

chapter - I had trouble figuring out which character was "talking." Maybe that's just me.

LibraryThing member KatyBee

Impossible to put down, this unwinds like a slow burning fever nightmare. Tough subject handled in a great literary style. Love the Colorado mountain wilderness setting.

LibraryThing member rmckeown

I am not much of a fan of thrillers, but when Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill comes out with a novel, I read it, regardless of the genre. Descent, by Tim Johnston might just change my view of suspense novels.

Johnston, a native of Iowa City, Iowa, teaches creative writing at the University of

Memphis. He has authored a young adult novel, Never So Green, and a short story collection, Irish Girl, which won the prestigious Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. Descent is his first adult novel (Dust Jacket). And what a first it is!

Grant and Angela Courtland have two children – Caitlin, 18, and about to enter college on an athletic scholarship as a cross-country runner, and Sean, 16, who idolizes his sister. The family travels to the Rocky Mountains for a vacation. One morning, Caitlin goes out for a run, followed by Sean on a mountain bike. Their travels take them up a mountain and down to a road. Sean skids onto the road and is hit by some sort of SUV. Caitlin returns to him and finds he is seriously injured. She has no cell phone signal. The driver offers to drive her to the nearest town to get help. Someone alerts the police, and they find Sean by the side of the road. But Caitlin has disappeared.

After hundreds of reviews, I can honestly say I have never used the term “Page Turner.” But Descent is exactly that. Like all fine fiction, I did not know how the story would end, and I did not care. The emotions the characters experienced were eerily real. The narrative was so taut, so detailed, and so exciting, that was all I needed to keep going.

Angela experienced a tragedy when she was young, losing her twin sister in a swimming accident. This dark, cloudy memory overhangs the entire story. The sheriff locates Grant and Angela. Johnston writes, “Now in the little motel room, his wife’s phone to his ear, he begged: Please God, please God, and the sheriff was asking him again where he was at, telling him to stay put. The boy was safe, he was sleeping. He was coming to get them, the sheriff – no more than fifteen minutes. He would take them up there himself, up the mountain. He would take them wherever they needed to go. But they wouldn’t be here when the sheriff arrived, Grant knew. They would be on the mountain, on their way up. The boy was safe. The boy was sleeping. Grant would be at the wheel and Angela would be at the maps, they way it was in the life before, the way it would be in the life to come” (19).

The story has several twists and turns, and the action happens so fast I am reminded of a slalom skier flying down a mountain. Descent by Tim Johnston is about as exciting a novel as I have ever read. Any cliché which comes to mind – page-turner, edge-of-the-seat, hair-raising – they all fit. I am even in a rare agreement with a jacket blurb – “Lyrical and hypnotic […] a pulse-pounding thriller.” My next order of business: order his collection of short stories, and then wait for another novel. 5 stars.

--Jim, 2/8/15

LibraryThing member Carl_Alves

I read some of the national publication reviews for this novel, and they had written things such as “super-charged”, “compelling”, and “addictive thriller”, and after reading this novel, I’m wondering if these critics read the same book that I did. The novel that I read was the

complete opposite of these things. The situation in the novel is interesting. College student, Caitlyn, is hiking in the Rocky Mountains with her brother, and she is kidnapped. It starts off with a compelling idea, but what follows is so utterly boring, mundane, not remotely compelling or riveting. After that, it’s basically her family members in the aftermath not doing a whole helluva lot. Her mom goes back home with her brother. Her dad stays around in Colorado where he is just kind of passing the time, not actively doing much to find his daughter. If there was some active investigation in finding her, I would find it more interesting, but that was not the case.

If you’re reading this novel with the goal of curing insomnia, then I would suggest you read it. But if you’re trying to be entertained or engrossed, then this novel falls way off the mark. I couldn’t even make it to the end of the novel, and I try hard to finish reading everything that I start.

Carl Alves – author of The Invocation

LibraryThing member sturlington

On a family vacation in Colorado, an eighteen-year-old girl goes for a run on a deserted mountain road, accompanied by her younger brother on a mountain bike, when the worst thing happens. The boy is left injured, and the girl has disappeared, plummeting her family into a nightmare.

This book was so

much more than the escapist thriller I was expecting. It never goes in the expected direction. Johnston's writing style is spare but evocative, and he does a remarkable job of breathing life into the wild mountain setting and all the characters, large and small, allowing the reader to fully inhabit this book's world. While the subject matter is undeniably rough--there is rape, there is minor animal abuse--the story itself has a quality of myth, addressing themes of fate and chance and what it means to be a hero. This book enthralled me, and I'm sure it will stay with me for a long time.

LibraryThing member karenthib

I received this book as part of the Library Thing Early Reviewers program. Overall, I enjoyed the novel and felt that the twists were interesting, But I also felt like the author was really trying to make sure we knew this was literary crime fiction. I felt like sometimes he was just writing too

hard and things didn't flow as organically as they could have. I did like the story and I didn't see the resolution coming a mile away which is sometimes not the case in novels like this. I thought the Angela character really got lost after the first quarter-to-third of the book and would have appreciated having a little bit more of her point of view along the way, even if it was just to add that she was still shattered and not coping well with her daughter's disappearance. I enjoyed Grant's relationship with Emmet Kinney and thought those characters were very well-drawn. I wasn't blown away, but I would definitely recommend this to fans of this genre.

LibraryThing member Moppette

Descent is a novel about a disappearance of a daughter and a family coping with the loss. I found the book well written and the characters well fleshed out. The book did not seem like the run of the mill suspense story nor was it overly literary in its telling. Personally I found the book dragging

in the beginning but it seemed to pick up in the middle where it held my interest until the end. I look forward to reading future works by Tim Johnston.

LibraryThing member jen505

What a suspenseful thriller! This was a page turner of a book that I couldn't put down. I loved the setting and the writing style. I will look for more by this author for sure!

LibraryThing member snora

Page turner. This book took over my life the past two days. A young girl vanishes during a Colorado vacation while on a run with her younger brother. This is a taut thriller that rises above similar novels due to its literary merits. Although the mystery of the lost girl is important, the book is

really about the reactions of her family. Each character deals with the loss in their own special way. How does one deal with such a tragedy? An underlying theme is how does a God allow this to happen. Chance? Fate? My only minor objection to the book is the neat, coincidental ending

LibraryThing member AnneWK

While on vacation, a teen-aged brother and sister are out on an unfamiliar Colorado wilderness road, she running to prepare for her college track scholarship and he accompanying her on a rented bike. He is discovered badly hurt and she disappears. In an annoying (to me) tease, the author little by

little reveals what happened to these two. We also follow how the sister's disappearance affects the family, the father who remains in Colorado, unwilling to leave the area where his daughter was lost, the mother who returns home to Wisconsin, shattered, and the brother who cannot live a normal life afterward.
The characters, even the peripheral ones, are well drawn, complete individuals which makes the story even more engrossing.. A page turner, for sure.

LibraryThing member LynnCoulter

Descent, by Tim Johnston, is a thriller/suspense novel that will keep you reading late into the night. It's well-written, with realistic, believable characters and a plot that is, as you often hear, ripped from the headlines. Without giving too much away, it's about an abduction and its chilling

effects on the family who must go on after one of the children disappears.

As good as this book is--and it is--I must add, I wasn't the right reader for it. I received a copy in a free giveaway, although I might have bought it for myself, it because it looked exciting and promised to explore the characters' lives. But it's really intense.

I can read thrillers that leave some divide between me and the characters, so the excitement is like what you get on a roller coaster. You're scared, but you know it's not real, that you can get off the ride, that you'll be safe at the end.

That wasn't the case for me with this book. The crime in this novel is too real--it's happened over and over, as we see in the news. And the damage to the characters--not just physically, but emotionally and every other way--is also too realistic and horrifying.

In short, this story is the stuff of nightmares. But they're the kind that have really happened, and will happen again because evil is real, and it's out there in our society.

So--kudos to the author for a well-written book. I gave it 4 stars because it would feel wrong to downgrade it because of my personal preferences for lighter fare. But it's not for sensitive readers who may be deeply troubled by its violence and description of pain and suffering.

LibraryThing member readaholic12

Descent is a riveting story, very well written and paced and I could not stop reading until I finished the last page. I'm still thinking about the story and characters days later. It's hard to talk about the story or make comparisons to others in the genre without giving anything away, so I will

not talk about the plot except to say it is an often nerve-wracking tale of every parent's worst nightmare. Most of the characters are nuanced, believable and many times heartbreaking, and I expect several of them to stay with me for a very long time. The sense of place is compelling and transporting, and the depictions of the complexity and frailty of human relationships in the wake of a tragedy are very well done. The writing is exceptional, and reminded me at times of Gillian Flynn, Cormack McCarthy, John Irving, Kent Haruf, William Faulkner and Jeffrey Lent to name a few, but still this novel has a unique voice and writing style, and managed to keep me guessing and surprised at the twists and turns until the end. I'll be adding Tim Johnston to my author watch list, and expect to read this book again, more slowly this time. I can't wait to see who options the movie rights to this novel, and will tell my book group to bump this one to the top of the list.

LibraryThing member Amelianovich

This was quite the captivating read! Thrilling and suspenseful with complex characters and powerful dialogue. It the story of a family vacation gone wrong when the teenage daughter disappears. Lives spiral downward as each family member tries to come to terms with her disappearance. And the

questions are.....how long do you keep on searching until you give up? And when do you stop fighting for survival? I think I would have given this book 5 stars however it took me at least 100 pages to get hooked and then I was mesmerized! Haunting and one of those books that I won't forget! I recommend!

I won this novel from LibraryThing. Lucky me!

LibraryThing member cartoslibrary

Johnston’s psychological thriller is set in the harsh, unforgiving mountains of Colorado, where famous ski resorts like Breckenridge and Estes Park, share the land with high-altitude survival training venues like Camp Hale, home of the 10th Mountain Division.

The action begins in a resort on the

scenic Trail Ridge Road that winds through the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies. It’s summer, and the Cortlands (Grant and Angela and their teenagers, Caitlin and Sean) have come to the Rocky Mountain Nat’l Park on vacation so that distance runner Caitlin can train at high-altitude.

As the novel opens, Caitlin is leaving the motel for an early morning run. Younger brother Sean is following her on a rented mountain bike. They climb higher and higher and Sean struggles to keep up with Caitlin. He falls behind and suddenly a speeding vehicle bears down on him. Sean is injured and wakes in the hospital. But what of Caitlin? She is missing. The remainder of the novel tell of the search for Caitlin and her family’s attempt to cope with their loss. The story is told in 60 chapters that range from 1 to 10 pages. Each chapter deals with a vignette or detail of the story.

Parts of this novel were not to my liking: first, I could not believe that a flatlander, even a high-school cross-country runner, could arrive in Colorado and run at altitudes above 9,000 ft. on her first day. Second, the mountain scenes are exaggerated: the author writes of lush mixed forests at altitudes where only scrub forest can survive, he gives us a animals not found in the high mountains such as a pair of Northern Cardinals. I also disliked the author continually referring to Sean as “the boy” and Caitlin as “the girl”— I felt that these terms kept me from knowing the characters as people. Finally, some chapters seemed brief and cryptic to the point loosing their meaning. But these complaints did not keep me from enjoying the novel.

This is not a slasher novel or a soap opera, but a carefully crafted psychological thriller. The novel reads well and the plot moves forward at a quick pace. If you like experimental fiction in the thriller mode then this may be a good choice for you.

Carto

LibraryThing member tvordj

There are spoilers below!

I received a copy of this book via Librarything for a review and Wow, am I glad I was one of the lucky recipients! What a good story!

A family heads up into the mountains of Colorado on vacation. The daughter, Caitlyn and son, Sean, both teenagers, go for a run/bike ride one

morning but only Sean comes back, in an ambulance. There's a car accident that injures Sean and Caitlyn is abducted by the driver of the vehicle when he offers to take her to get help. She disappears and the family are devastated. While Sean recovers, the search parties comb the mountains for Caitlyn. The story delves into the repercussions to the relationships of the remaining family members, how it changes them individually and as a family over the next couple of years.

Grant, the father, stays on in Colorado, living with an older man, the father of the Sherrif, while he continues to stay on top of the search and investigation. He clashes with the old man's other son, Billy, who is spoiled, selfish, disrespectful and resentful. Angela, the mother, returns to Wisconsin with Sean who returns to school after his injuries heal. Angela is devastated and can't cope with life. She retreats emotionally and Sean leaves school and wanders around the countryside, alone, doing odd jobs for cash to survive. After a bit of trouble, he and his father awkwardly reunite and begin to find their way back.

But it's also a story of survival and courage.

(spoilers here on in)

We discover that Caitlyn is alive and chained in a small shack, used and abused by the man that took her. We find out that she does what she has to in order to survive. A chance encounter by Billy with a man in a bar sparks something in this man who has lived a wasted life. Billy ends up being the hero after a chase and deadly encounter on a snowy night on a mountain and Caitlyn escapes by taking drastic measures.

I had to reread the encounter between Billy and the kidnapper because I didn't know what it was that made Billy go after him but realized that during the conversation, the stranger knew one or two details about the abduction that Billy realizes wasn't publicized at the time. There isn't really any reason why Billy, a man who has been depicted as completely selfish suddenly decides to try to find out if this man did kidnap Caitlyn. But then again, his father had just died and perhaps that made him want to prove to his dad and brother and, finally, to himself that he still had some decency left.

I thought the book was well written and well paced. The family dynamics and the after effects of Caitlyn's disappearance on each of them weighed hard and affected them in different ways. The conclusion made you wonder what the effects of the past few years would do to the family going forward but going into that would only drag out the ending of the book.

Loved it!

LibraryThing member RoxieF

I received Descent as an ARC. It details the story of a family undone by the disappearance of a daughter. It explains the survivor guilt her brother has as he was with her when she was taken. It reveals her parent's anguish. It also gives her side of the story as well as her abductor's POV. It

delves into the questions of how long should family look for a missing person, how guilty they feel if they try to move on, and how it tears a family apart. I found parts of the book confusing as it jumps from person to person, and sometimes I was a little confused. However, the story and plot are so interesting, I had a hard time putting the book down and read it in 2 days. Highly recommend!

LibraryThing member AudrieClifford

Descent is one of the most outstanding books I've read in a long time, and I'm a person who reads almost constantly. I was a little surprised about the way the author's style differs somewhat from most other writers, in that while there are several male characters in the book, and many of them are

written about extensively, Tim Johnston is so good that he can begin a new chapter with the word "He" and it only takes a few sentences for the reader to know which "he" is being written about. The story itself is sad and dark and unfortunately, so true-to-life. Congratulations, Mr. Johnston. You've made this kind of tragedy so very, very real

LibraryThing member Scrabblenut

I hate to say this, but Descent was a downer. After a 17-year-old girl is snatched in a remote area in the Colorado Rockies, there seem to be no clues to her whereabouts. The novel follows the subsequent years of each of her family members as they try to cope with the disappearance. The book

alternates between points of view, and skips large periods of time rather randomly, and I found myself not all that interested, and wanting to skip through it all for the first 180 pages of the story. However, at this halfway point, things started to pick up and get more interesting as I began to care about the girl and her brother, so the last half of the book was a real page-turner. I do not really enjoy reading about depraved psychopaths and extreme cruelty, so perhaps this book wasn't the best choice for me. It was well-written and the ending held lots of suspense and surprises.

LibraryThing member stephvin

Really enjoyed reading this book. The plot was mind blowing and the characters well developed. I almost didn't want to keep reading for fear of what would happen to Caitlin, the daughter of the parents in the book. Reminds me of that story in Ohio of the four girls-won't say more it will be a

spoiler. Well worth reading. Every word was descriptive and meaningful.

LibraryThing member LynnB

I really enjoyed reading this novel. I'm not a crime/thriller fan in general, but Mr. Johnston has done an excellent job in bringing strong character development and a realistic plot to the genre....two things I generally find less than satisfactory.

In this book, we have the story of a young woman

abruptly kidnapped while her family is vacationing in the mountains. The novel focuses on the psychological impact this has on her parents and younger brother. We see them try to deal with Caitlin's disappearance over several years, and their coping skills vary; sometimes they make healthy choices and sometimes they don't. We also have the story of the search itself and the drama of whether Caitlin will ever be found.

At times, I was confused about where we were in time in the novel, and whose point of view was being expressed. The author used this device once or twice to great dramatic effect; other times, it was less effective. But overall, I thought the writing was very good.

I would read more by this author, and that, I think, is a strong endorsement of any author.

LibraryThing member julie.billing

Marketed as a mystery / thriller, Descent is Johnston's first adult novel and is set largely in Rocky Mountain National Park. The book generally follows a family recovering from a tragedy - or if not recovering, merely living with it - and is vaguely reminiscent of a Joyce Carol Oates novel. The

family aspects, although not completely explored, were well done and probably stand out as better writing in my mind than the thriller aspects.

Some confusion does show through in his writing at times. Some chapters are italicized, and not always for the same reason. Also, he often refers to one of the two main characters as "the boy" or "the girl," but then calls them by name, or someone else "the boy" in another chapter. Those things aside, the writing is solid and I thought that the scenes written from Sean's point of view were especially well done, with only a couple of exceptions. This review is based on an advanced copy and those things may be worked out before final publication so I would not discourage reading it based on those points.

A solid start for Tim Johnston's first adult novel. I hope to see more of him though maybe more on the family drama side than the thriller side of the book world.

LibraryThing member jlouise77

I really loved this book. I loved the characters, the plot, the ending, fantastic ending. It really kept me reading and interested. That is saying a lot because I am a very busy mother of 3. Very interested and action packed. Not your normal book either, definitely a unique topic, not something you

read every day. Highly recommend.

Awards

RUSA CODES Reading List (Shortlist — 2016)

NPR: Books We Love (2015)

50 Best Suspense Books of All Time

Language

Original language

English

Barcode

6958

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