To the Mountain

by Erik Raschke Narrated by Erik Raschke

Overview

“To the Mountain¿pits a father and son against the wilderness survival tale's usual merciless elements: perilous trails, menacing predators, and poor cell reception. What lifts this novel above the ordinary also challenges readers-to enter the hyper-sensory perspective of the autistic boy as he puzzles his way through an insensate world. It is not a spoiler to say that love matters when the odds seem insurmountable and surrender feels like mercy.” 

-CHARLIE QUIMBY, author of Monument Road and Inhabited 

“A deeply affecting tale of a father's love for his autistic son.¿Erik Raschke's lyrical prose evokes both the awesome wilderness of the Rocky Mountains in winter and the unfathomable wilderness of the human heart."

-MARGARET COEL, New York Times bestselling author of¿Winter's Child

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Powerful…a harrowing and engaging tale of survival."
—KIRKUS REVIEWS

"Lyrical and haunting."
—FOREWORD REVIEWS

"Raschke interprets motifs of loss, separation, and renewal with keen storytelling chops and a distinctive lyrical style. This brief but riveting story has much to offer."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"A mercilessly taut, relentlessly thrilling tale of heartbreak and survival. Raschke writes with humanity and grace about the challenges of parenthood, and the rigors of the natural world."
—JONATHAN EVISON, author of The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

"To the Mountain pits a father and son against the wilderness survival tale's usual merciless elements: perilous trails, menacing predators, and poor cell reception. What lifts this novel above the ordinary also challenges readers—to enter the hyper–sensory perspective of the autistic boy as he puzzles his way through an insensate world. It is not a spoiler to say that love matters when the odds seem insurmountable and surrender feels like mercy."
—CHARLIE QUIMBY, author of Monument Road

"A deeply affecting tale of a father's love for his autistic son. Erik Raschke's lyrical prose evokes both the awesome wilderness of the Rocky Mountains in winter and the unfathomable wilderness of the human heart. This brief and beautiful novel will linger long after you have turned the last page."
—MARGARET COEL, New York Times bestselling author of Winter's Child

Kirkus Reviews

2020-07-14
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.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175571531
Publisher:	Torrey House Press
Publication date:	02/16/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

When Marshall awoke, the light angled across his bed, sparking the dust. Out the window, only a few miles away, the mountain was enveloped by clouds.

The mountain was simply called "The Mountain." His father had told him that Spanish explorers came this far north, to southern Colorado, and had named the two adjacent mountain ranges, the San Juans and the Sangre de Cristos respectively. However, "The Mountain" was part of neither range, but a lone volcano that sat between both. It stood alone and therefore appeared taller than the rest.

Marshall flopped in his bed, turning away from the window, held his breath, shook his head from side to side, closed his eyes, and exhaled through pursed lips.

Three attendants, Randy, Bernice, and Francine, were talking in the hallway, and as they spoke, Marshall could picture the way Randy's left top lip twitched when he laughed, Francine's teeth flashed when she made a point, and Bernice's nose flared when she came to punctuation in her sentences.

Their gossip was halted by something that Marshall could not see or hear. The attendant's feet pulled away from the circle. There came a light knock on the door, two hesitant raps.

"Marsh," a voice said, stern, but patient.

He clambered out of bed, feeling as if he were an oak plank floating upon a foamy tide. When he opened his eyes the ground swayed. He clamped his eyes closed, plugged his ears, snatched at the clothes in his drawers. He dragged his pants and shirt on, patted his body with his hands, pushed himself to his feet, stumbled toward the door. Remembering Suzy, he called out her name, rushed to the bed, patted it down, ran his hand under the pillow, and found her wedged between the mattress and the bed frame.

There was another knock on the door, one determined strike of knuckles against wood. He stepped into the hallway and an attendant emerged from an adjacent room and blocked him. The man’s lips and cheeks were chapped and sunburned, shreds of skin peeling away. His eyes were olives behind thick glasses. Marshall had never seen the man before.

"How many times we gotta knock?" he asked.

"One,” Marshall said, because it was the only number he could remember.

"Don't you be a smart–ass," the attendant said, thin lips stretching into thin cheeks, punctuating the threat.

Marshall steered himself around the man, gripping the railing, but was crippled by sharp pins in his feet. His shoes were on the wrong feet. His clothes were inside out. But he couldn't stop or he'd get in trouble.

He weaved down the hall and eventually made it to the dining hall. He peeked in and looked for Leslie, but through the fuzz of the crowd and the sounds and blinding lights, his equilibrium tottered and he had to close his eyes to keep his balance.

As Marshall entered the dining hall, he turned this way and that, trying to orienteer for himself. Suzy pinched his elbow with her plastic hands, ordered him to go to the other end of the hall. He followed the steel railing, grabbed some the silverware and a dish, and drifted toward the food line. A man serving potatoes ordered him to get a tray. When he turned around, a boy brushed past, and they knocked elbows. He dropped his dish and it shattered into two moonlike pieces. He had no control over his muscles. He screamed and threw his cup. One of the attendants shouted. Marshall gave a conciliatory smile, but the attendant misinterpreted it as mockery. He jabbed his finger and barked, "The bathtub is a mean cat."

He knew bathtubs were not cats. Before he could ask the attendant for clarification, a second attendant, a woman, began talking excitedly, asking Marshall the kind of questions that were not questions, but accusations ending in a question mark. The grating tone of their voices made him squeamish and he put his hands over his ears. The female attendant yanked them down, splotches of red appearing on her neck. She was shouting indecipherable words; puts, and tuts and shlluppp. Marshall pressed against the wall, trying to hide between the bricks.

***

The director was a bearded man with soft, sympathetic eyes and thick lashes; he walked the halls with a modicum of authority, but avoided the boys when they roamed in packs. When Marshall entered, the director studied him, scratching at his beard.

"You’re here why?" he asked.

Marshall knew the director's name, had repeated it many times, but now, it was lost. He searched the tidy office for a clue. There was a photo of three dogs, blue ribbons hanging on the wall, a rubber tree fading in a corner. He closed his eyes and dug for a visual association, but the man's name remained elusive.

"Shrink them purple?" the director said.

Marshall did not know how to answer the question. He was not even sure if it was a question at all. He wanted to please the director, but he did not want to say the wrong thing so he scrunched his forehead and pretended to think of a response.

"You hear me?"

"Why?" Marshall asked.

The director stared at him with the kind of calm expression that could easily tip into anger. "I'm asking you."

The office was narrow and the walls constricting. When the director leaned back, his chair groaned. When he leaned forward, it chirped. The fluorescent lights roared. In between Marshall's ear and his brain the director's words tightened into a visible cube and the sentences hurled through context.

"Making changes near the front," the director said, then concluded with, "Even flies will be getting stuck."

Marshall nodded enthusiastically, praying that this was the right response. The gesture seemed to work because the director stood and held out his arms. Marshall did not want to do anything wrong, so he stepped forward, but when the director grabbed him tight, he was suffocated not only by the constricting embrace, but by the smells of menthol cigarettes, crusted sweat, blueberry muffins, and coffee.

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