Synopses & Reviews
From the day Caitlin vanishes the lives of her family members are irrevocably altered, each assuming blame for that day’s tragic events. As the initial days of hope are replaced by weeks of anxiety and despair, they find themselves increasingly isolated, each wondering: Is she still alive? Will we ever know what happened?
Pursuing every angle and refusing to surrender the belief that his daughter is still alive, Caitlin’s father struggles through the mountainous terrain, prodding both his son and the local authorities to keep up the search. It is through a most unlikely source, however, that they finally find an answer, in a climax that is stunning in both its execution and resolution.
Written with precision and elegance, Johnston captures characters’ emotions, divergent thoughts, and moments of bleak loneliness as they search for answers. Descent is both a taut and gripping thriller and a work of outstanding literary merit, a combination of great story and beautiful writing that is certain to garner comparisons with the work of such bestselling writers as Cormac McCarthy and Dennis Lehane.
Synopsis
On a family vacation in the mountains near Denver, a girl on the brink of starting college and her younger brother leave the hotel to run and bike up a winding mountain road. Hours later, the boy is brought down in an ambulance, the victim of an apparent hit-and-run accident. His sister, however, has disappeared.
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.
XE SANDS is a published audiobook narrator with more than a decade of experience bringing stories to life through narration and performance. From poignant young adult fiction to powerful first-person narrative, Sands’ characterizations are rich and expressive and her narrations evocative and intimate.R. C. BRAY has performed Off-Broadway in New York City, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, and many stages in between. In addition to audiobooks, his work is heard in promos for The Biography Channel, A&E and CNBC. He lives in New England.