The New York Times Book Review - Britt Peterson
An entire moral universe is at stake here, rotating between duty and self-reliance. When Tom helps a trapped goshawk escape, he thinks, "To be fully equipped for life in body alone, autonomous, to move through this world needing nothing—that was beautiful." Leipciger questions, punctures and then partially reconstructs this ethic, one that's matched by the rigorous beauty of her own writing.
From the Publisher
"THE MOUNTAIN CAN WAIT is a taut, psychologically gripping novel populated by original characters constantly at battle with nature, family, society, and themselves. This is a book that kept me up at night. Leipciger has Margaret Atwood's rare flair for crafting an intelligent and suspenseful novel."—- Nickolas Butler, bestselling author of Shotgun Lovesongs
"It's clear and beautiful, like swimming in a mountain lake."—Mark Haddon, author of New York Times bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
"In this assured debut novel Leipciger beautifully captures the tender and mercurial relationship between father and son, Tom and Curtis Berry. These are characters you care about, flawed and haunted by regret, existing in the harsh yet undeniably radiant world of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Leipciger writes with great compassion and precision, her language is an exquisite mix of muscle and grace. The Mountain Can Wait resonated with wonderful imagery which will stay with me for a very long time."—Michele Forbes, author of Ghost Moth
"The Mountain Can Wait is as haunting, wild and compelling as the landscape it describes."
—Claire Cameron, author of The Bear
"Genuinely moving."
—Kirkus
Kirkus Reviews
2015-02-25
In Leipciger's debut, a moody semitragedy set in Western Canada, the lives of a single father, who's never been able to express the love he feels for his children, and his son, who's made a catastrophic mistake and fears the consequences, circle around each other.The novel begins with the mistake, a hit-and-run accident. Curtis is driving alone late at night when he hits a girl walking along the road and leaves the scene, not sure if she's alive or dead. He leaves his job and hides out with a friend. When his father, Tom, stops by, Curtis screws up his courage to say, "I think I killed someone." But Tom assumes Curtis is referring to a girlfriend's abortion and goes back to his out-of-town job supervising a crew planting trees. Tom raised Curtis and his younger sister, Erin, after their mother, Elka, ran off shortly after Erin's birth. Tom searched for Elka but couldn't find her, and she died four years later. He has never totally recovered from the loss, and she remains throughout the novel a sad mystery, cherished in memory by Tom and her mother, Bobbie, who distrust each other. Tom, skilled at practical tasks, is clueless about human relationships. Neither his children nor the woman with whom he's romantically involved realize how much he cares for them. While Tom deals with crew problems on and off the job, not to mention an unfortunate dalliance with the planters' cook, Curtis goes on the run. Ending up on the isolated island where Elka was raised, he bonds with Bobbie, whom he's never met before. By then his disappearance has made him a suspect, and the police involve a reluctant Tom, who realizes that he ignored Curtis' cry for help early on. Written with painfully nuanced care that displays affection for nature and the laconic, working-class characters, the result is not a cheerful read but genuinely moving.
