The Fall-Down Effect - by Liz Johnston (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Exploring protest, climate change, and fractured family relationships, Liz Johnston's eagerly anticipated debut novel, The Fall-Down Effect, asks what we really owe people in our lives when we are fighting for a greater cause.

As a child in the late 1980s, Fern is the wild heart of her tree-hugging family--quick-tempered and yearning to spend every minute in the woods of the small Pacific Northwest logging town where they live. She is also most like her environmental activist mother, Lynn, who chafes against the demands of motherhood and yearns for the protests of her youth. As tensions escalate, Lynn leaves her partner, Tom, and their three children, telling herself she will devote her life more fully to fighting for the earth.

At nineteen, Fern commits her own radical act of protest, which authorities label ecoterrorism. When Fern goes underground, her parents and siblings--responsible grad student Sylvia and budding artist River--struggle to make sense of her actions while also trying to cover up her absence. Fern's secret proves impossible to keep, and when she becomes a wanted woman, the rest of the family trades blame. Years later, when Lynn takes shelter from a forest fire in the home she left so many years before, the family is forced to confront their regrets during a fraught, baggage-filled reunion.

Review Quotes

"A cautionary tale, The Fall-Down Effect urges us to be gentler with one another and the environment; to be more thoughtful than thoughtless, and to thoroughly consider the viewpoints of others before making irrevocable decisions." --The Miramichi Reader

"Although the novel's events turn around the turn of the twenty-first century, there is an epic backdrop surrounding contemporary life in British Columbia's timeless forest." --The Seaboard Review

"The novel, examining the nature of survival--personal and environmental--is both small and epic. Through tight and relatable dialogue, Johnston captures deeply entrenched family dynamics and profound truths about relationships." --The New Quarterly

"The Fall-Down Effect had me from page one--a brave and beautiful novel about desperate measures, the bonds we break and the ones that miraculously endure." --Alissa York, author of Far Cry

"This gripping, tender novel by Liz Johnston tells us so much about lifetimes--of individuals and families, forests and ecosystems. Its characters and hopes are seared into my memory. Read this wondrous, extraordinary book and be moved." --Madeleine Thien, author of The Book of Records

About the Author

LIZ JOHNSTON grew up in Revelstoke, B.C., and now lives and writes in Toronto. Her essays and short stories have appeared in Poets & Writers, The Fiddlehead, The Humber Literary Review, Grain, The Antigonish Review, and The Cardiff Review. Johnston is an editor of Brick, A Literary Journal. The Fall-Down Effect is her debut novel.?