Mary Walker returns to the New Hampshire mountains of her childhood with her new husband, ready to rebuild her family's house on Cascom Mountain and start their life together. But in a single, devastating moment during a routine hike, she watches helplessly as her husband falls to his death, leaving her utterly alone in the wilderness that once felt like home.
Struggling with sudden widowhood in the isolated mountain community, Mary finds unexpected solace among the seasonal crew that maintains the trails and lodge--young people who gather each night to share ghost stories and songs. She forms a deep connection with Callie, a sensitive sixteen-year-old who sees past Mary's grief, and with Tobin, the brilliant but awkward boy she once babysat, who now keeps silent vigil on her roof as she attempts to repair more than just her family's house.
When her husband's estranged father arrives on the mountain, seeking some belated connection to his lost son, Mary must confront not only her own grief but the complicated legacy of family wounds. As the small community rallies around her, Mary discovers that healing comes not from escaping the past but from embracing the rugged beauty and harsh realities of the place that shaped her.
Set against the unforgiving terrain of New Hampshire's mountains, Down from Cascom Mountain is a powerful exploration of how we rebuild our lives after loss--and how the land we love can break us and make us whole again. Ann Joslin Williams, writing in the fictional world first created by her father, National Book Award winner Thomas Williams, announces herself as a formidable novelist in her own right.
About the Author :
Ann Joslin Williams is the author of the novel Down From Cascom Mountain, and a collection of linked short stories The Woman in the Woods. She is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, the New Hampshire Writers' Project Literary Awards, and the Stegner Program at Stanford University. Her writing has appeared in many journals including The Sun, Carve, Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She is an associate professor of English at the University of New Hampshire. When she's not teaching in Durham, she spends time in Alexandria, New Hampshire at her family cabin, hiking in the White Mountains and enjoying the outdoors with her partner John.
Review :
"Down From Cascom Mountain is a thrilling and gorgeous novel, one that reaches far beneath the surface of human experience to reveal the roots of love and illuminate the depths of loss. In her virtuosic prose, Williams leads us into a rocky Northern landscape as dangerous as it is seductive; along the way, we come to know her characters as intimately as old friends. Their grief, hope, and desire will follow you far beyond the pages of this unforgettable book, and will lead you to recommend it to everyone you know."
--Julie Orringer, author of How to Breathe Underwater and The Invisible Bridge
"Ann Joslin Williams has crafted a stellar first novel that reads as if it's her tenth. With the finely wrought prose of a poet, Williams gives us flesh and blood characters we can't help but care about, women, men, and children who find themselves deep in dangerous terrain: the natural world of Cascom Mountain, as well as their own conflicted and natural longings. This a haunting and lovely book!"
--Andre Dubus, III, author of House of Sand and Fog and Townie
"Here in are the qualities of enduring greatness, our turbulent natures, instructions for life. Inside these covers there's a woman's profound love, a terrible and beautiful world, the claw of grief. Her story is told with grace and dignity and the kind of writing we hunger for: straight and true, spare and generous."
--Robert Olmsted, author Stay Here With Me and Coal Black Horse
"Sexy, following a rugged path from sorrow to salvation, Williams' new book is made from the serious materials of sudden grief -- but it isn't sad In the least. On the contrary! There's a fierce, hard-won joy here, as sturdy as the mountains of New Hampshire, and as glorious."
--Michael Byers, author of Long For This World and Percival's Planet
"There seems to be no element of these people and this landscape to which Williams is a stranger. She sees straight to the heart of her characters, and it is a pleasure to witness them yearning and grieving and loving their way through these pages, one living human presence after another, the mountain and the forest rising up around them in all their mystery and specificity."
--Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Brief History of the Dead and Illumination
