Please join us (in collaboration with The Booksellers at Laurelwood) to welcome Crosstown Arts first Visiting Writer for 2015, Tim Johnston, to read from and sign his thrilling debut adult novel, Descent (Algonquin Books). A story that begins as a family’s fated summer trip to the Rocky Mountains quickly reveals itself to be both a gripping page-turner and a satisfying work of literary fiction reflecting on the personal nature of loss and longing from several characters’ perspectives.
Tim’s previous works of fiction include the young adult novel Never So Green (FSG) and the story collection Irish Girl (UNT Press), winner of the prestigious Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, a collection of which David Sedaris said, “It’s dark in here, but brilliant. Tim Johnston is as wise as he is original, and his stories are impossible to forget.”

Tim Johnston is currently teaching in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Memphis, where he is the director of the The Pinch Literary Journal. Please help us give him his overdue welcome to Memphis in celebration of this fine work of fiction.

As always, free and open to the public.

Advance praise for Descent:

“Outstanding . . . The days when you had to choose between a great story and a great piece of writing? Gone.” —Esquire

“I’ve read many variations on this theme, some quite good, but never one as powerful as Tim Johnston’s Descent… The story unfolds brilliantly, always surprisingly, but the glory of Descent lies not in its plot but in the quality of the writing. The magic of his prose equals the horror of Johnston’s story; each somehow enhances the other. . . . Read this astonishing novel. It’s the best of both worlds.”
—The Washington Post

“This is much more than your typical thriller. Tim Johnston has written a book that makes Gone Girl seem gimmicky…Johnson is an excellent writer. You want to set this one down so you can take a breath, and keep reading–all at the same time.”
—Alan Cheuse, on NPR’s All Things Considered