Descent

Starred review from October 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.

November 15, 2014
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.

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March 23, 2015
With his first novel for adults, Johnston focuses on the Courtlands—Grant and Angela, their daughter Caitlin and son Sean—on a family vacation in the Rocky Mountains. They’ve barely arrived when the siblings head off to explore the area. Before long, Sean is discovered by the side of a road, badly injured... and alone. His 18-year-old sister, Caitlin, has been kidnapped by a disturbed woodsman who keeps her chained in his isolated mountain cabin. As the months go by, Grant and Angela’s initially fragile marriage breaks apart while the teenage Sean matures into a troubled adult. Johnston’s chapters hop from one Courtland to the other, occasionally skipping around in time. Such abrupt shifts can seem particularly confusing in an audio production, which is probably why two narrators were used. Sands, with her distinctive, natural delivery, quickly identifies the chapters devoted to daughter and mother, distinguishing them by using a firmer, depressed delivery for the suicide-prone Angela and a spacey, helpless natter for Caitlin. Sands also captures an infuriatingly patronizing passive-aggressiveness for Caitlin’s captor. Bray is responsible for a larger portion of the book, giving voice to the chapters featuring Grant and Sean, as well as a few told from the point of view of the sheriff and his younger brother, Billy. He gives Grant a rugged timbre, whereas Sean sounds more like a drifter who feels responsible for his sister’s misfortune. Bray’s sheriff is a hard man doing a tough job, while Billy is sly, brash, and arrogant, an obvious troublemaker who slowly becomes integral to this intriguing study of a tragedy’s aftermath. An Algonquin hardcover.