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Descent A Novel Tim Johnston Books

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Descent A Novel Tim Johnston Books

Let me begin by saying I was very excited to read this book. It started out very well. It felt like stepping into a conversation that was already going, but one that wasn’t hard to figure out what was happening.

Cue the dramatic event a few chapters in and then you follow a family as it tries to pick up the pieces. Mom goes nuts. Dad continues a search for the daughter long after authorities have given up hope. Younger brother goes AWOL. Lifetime movie comparisons abound.

The main problem I had with this book was that the dialogue was like pulling teeth. For some reason that I’m sure has a concrete literary concept behind it, as the author is an actual creative writing professor, all the characters act like they’re deaf.

I wish I was kidding. Imagine pages of this:

“What do you think we should do?”

“What?”

“I said, what do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know, you’re the one calling the shots. What do you think we should do?”

“Well if I knew I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?”

“What?”

To be clear, this is not an excerpt from the book, but it is EXACTLY how I felt when I was reading some of the dialogue. Maybe it was a device to emphasize how distracted the characters were in the midst of everything or to make the conversations feel more natural. For me it just didn’t work.

Then the book seems to have a problem with the story it’s trying to tell. We saw the characters as a family and we saw their individual stories of heartache and pain. Then [spoiler alert] we saw Caitlin. It was like the book couldn’t decide if it was going to be an action story of a heroine getting herself to safety or following the lives of a family in the aftermath of tragedy. Instead it tried to be both and neither one came away feeling very strong.

Now all that being said, this guy can write. The language and descriptions he gave are honestly reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy. Like seriously, that good. The story kept my attention even when the plot seemed to get bogged down in tangent adventures that had no bearing on the story. The unraveling of the mystery of Caitlin’s disappearance was discovered in such a way that it hurt to think this was the best trail the author took to get us to the climax. Think of solving a crime like Scooby-Doo, not Sherlock Holmes.

To the author’s credit he was trying to approach a beaten-like-a-dead-horse category of child-goes-missing, family-falls-apart genre and was able to do something unique.

It’s worth a read, especially if you can ever find it for under $5. Which is what I would have liked to have paid after I read it.


Tags : Amazon.com: Descent: A Novel (9781616203047): Tim Johnston: Books,Tim Johnston,Descent: A Novel,Algonquin Books,1616203048,Abduction,Abduction;Fiction.,Detective and mystery fiction,Domestic fiction,Families,Families;Fiction.,Loss (Psychology),Missing persons,Missing persons;Fiction.,Mystery fiction,Psychological fiction,Rocky Mountains Region,AMERICAN MYSTERY & SUSPENSE FICTION,FICTION General,FICTION Thrillers Crime,Fiction,Fiction - Espionage Thriller,Fiction-Thriller,GENERAL,General Adult,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),MysterySuspense,REFERENCE General,Thrillers - Crime,United States

Descent A Novel Tim Johnston Books Reviews

And so I was home in bed. I found this book that I had downloaded quite some time ago. Opened it up to see if it would fit my mood. Somehow it was not what I expected. But I was hooked from the first chapter. The character development is superb. The settings are described in perfect detail. I saw the pine trees. I felt the crunch of the snow. I was driving up from the foothills. I do not enjoy descriptive situations involving abuse, and I was not uncomfortable with this writing. You feel the horror and despair of the young girl without disturbing details. I chewed through this book in one day. It helped me get through this miserable illness. Thank you!
The Courtland family—Grant, Angela, Caitlin, and Sean—travel to the Rocky Mountains for a summer vacation before Caitlin leaves for college. The destination is Caitlin's choice—a championship runner, she hopes to challenge herself on the rugged terrain of the mountains so she is ready to compete at the collegiate level in a few months. For Grant and Angela, struggling to rebuild their marriage, the vacation represents an opportunity to try and strengthen a fragile trust.

Caitlin and Sean go for an early morning run/bike ride in the mountains. A few hours later, Grant gets a phone call from the county sheriff that Sean has been found badly injured on the side of a road, probably hit by a car, and Caitlin is nowhere to be found. All too quickly the idyllic vacation turns into a family's worst nightmare—what could have happened to Caitlin? Where is she? Is she alive? Will they ever see her again?

Descent follows Grant, Angela, and Sean as they try to make sense of Caitlin's disappearance. Already deeply affected by another tragedy earlier in her life, Angela's grasp on reality becomes ever more tenuous, and she tries to reconcile her feelings for her husband and her son. Grant and Sean each try to deal with their feelings of guilt and anger in very different ways, while navigating the tension that has grown between them.

I felt as if this was, in essence, two books in one. There was the exploration of family dynamics in the wake of a cataclysmic event, and then the tension-filled, heart-pounding conclusion. Tim Johnston is a terrific writer, and his use of language and imagery was almost poetic at times. I could have done with less introspection, because while I understand it was necessary to show just how vastly each individual was affected, I felt as if the same things happened over and over again. But once the action and suspense ratchets up, despite containing elements you've seen many times before, the book stepped itself up a notch or two.

This is a well-written book that definitely gets your heart pounding at the end. But the quiet moments in the book are just as powerful, and prove Johnston's strengths as a writer.
This is neither a quick or easy read and if you're looking for a quick thriller that can be skimmed on a plane or a beach you will be gravely disappointed. This is more than a thriller, it's a profoundly literary work with some of the most descriptive mesmerizing imagery I've read in a long while. At first, the shifts in narrative and time were a bit confusing but once I became familiar with the author's style and understood better the unique "voice" of each character it all fell into play. Although the characters all seem to deal with damages from this event, to the point it might seem almost depressing to read, the undercurrent of redemption is strong through the book. Bravo!
Let me begin by saying I was very excited to read this book. It started out very well. It felt like stepping into a conversation that was already going, but one that wasn’t hard to figure out what was happening.

Cue the dramatic event a few chapters in and then you follow a family as it tries to pick up the pieces. Mom goes nuts. Dad continues a search for the daughter long after authorities have given up hope. Younger brother goes AWOL. Lifetime movie comparisons abound.

The main problem I had with this book was that the dialogue was like pulling teeth. For some reason that I’m sure has a concrete literary concept behind it, as the author is an actual creative writing professor, all the characters act like they’re deaf.

I wish I was kidding. Imagine pages of this

“What do you think we should do?”

“What?”

“I said, what do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know, you’re the one calling the shots. What do you think we should do?”

“Well if I knew I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?”

“What?”

To be clear, this is not an excerpt from the book, but it is EXACTLY how I felt when I was reading some of the dialogue. Maybe it was a device to emphasize how distracted the characters were in the midst of everything or to make the conversations feel more natural. For me it just didn’t work.

Then the book seems to have a problem with the story it’s trying to tell. We saw the characters as a family and we saw their individual stories of heartache and pain. Then [spoiler alert] we saw Caitlin. It was like the book couldn’t decide if it was going to be an action story of a heroine getting herself to safety or following the lives of a family in the aftermath of tragedy. Instead it tried to be both and neither one came away feeling very strong.

Now all that being said, this guy can write. The language and descriptions he gave are honestly reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy. Like seriously, that good. The story kept my attention even when the plot seemed to get bogged down in tangent adventures that had no bearing on the story. The unraveling of the mystery of Caitlin’s disappearance was discovered in such a way that it hurt to think this was the best trail the author took to get us to the climax. Think of solving a crime like Scooby-Doo, not Sherlock Holmes.

To the author’s credit he was trying to approach a beaten-like-a-dead-horse category of child-goes-missing, family-falls-apart genre and was able to do something unique.

It’s worth a read, especially if you can ever find it for under $5. Which is what I would have liked to have paid after I read it.