TO THE MOUNTAIN

In this taut novel, a father and son grapple with emotional trauma and a hazardous mountain landscape.

The first word that comes to mind when describing Raschke’s novel is lean. That’s intended as a compliment: In telling the story of the fraught bond between a father and his son, Raschke could easily have tipped overboard into sentimentality. And while this novel does feature some moving scenes, it also includes quietly unnerving moments like this one, when the novel’s young protagonist retreats into his own mind: “The doll stroked the back of Marshall’s fingers with her plastic hand. Her mouth was dry like his and he could hear her clearly in his thoughts.” Twelve-year-old Marshall has autism spectrum disorder; when the novel opens, he’s been separated from his family and is living in a juvenile center. His life there is a hard one, including regular bouts of abuse from the other children, some of which prompt him to violently retaliate. While on a drive away from the center, Marshall is involved in a car wreck which strands him on a nearby mountain. There, he uses the skills he learned from his father, Jace, to survive. Jace, working nearby, goes about searching for his son and mulling over the events that led to their separation. This is, at its core, a primal story of two people struggling to survive. And when Raschke describes the hostile landscape around son and father, his novel reaches its most powerful heights: “The rock was cold and the tips of his fingers were becoming numb. He was moving too fast. He knew it. He still had at least two hundred feet to go.”

At its peak, this novel of a parent and child in trouble is a harrowing and engaging tale of survival.