‘Descent’: New novel will linger with readers

Tim Johnston's new novel, 'Descent” (Algonquin Books, 376 pages, $25.95), is a dark and beautiful book. Centered on the kidnapping of a young woman in the vast and forbidding Rocky Mountains, the story follows the separate and converging paths of the family members left behind. Her desperate efforts to survive are interposed as a narrative counterpoint.

Johnston, an Iowa City native who teaches creative writing at the University of Memphis, explores the small, seemingly random events that can change the course of interwoven lives forever. His characters - the victims, the villains and the less easily categorized - struggle to make sense of the situations in which they find themselves, and their efforts are heart-wrenching to witness on the page.

While the publisher has positioned the book as a thriller - a decision with which Johnston himself isn't wholly comfortable (see related interview) - the novel's power arises primarily from quieter scenes in which characters struggle to express and come to terms with their emotions.

Late in the novel, for example, the missing girl's father and son sit together and smoke, tentatively finding their way through a potentially painful conversation. The moment is breathtaking - more so than the action-oriented scenes surrounding it.

To be sure, Johnston successfully carries off his action scenes - including a harrowing chase down a snowy mountain - with skill and originality. But Johnston's care for and crafting of his characters ensures that 'Descent” is a book that will linger with readers far longer than even the best of those thrillers that hits all of the genre marks.

Book reading

What: Tim Johnston reads from 'Descent”

Where: Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City

When: 7 p.m. Jan. 29

Cost: Free