Though the Earth Gives Way

(Hardback)

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Mark Johnson tells a timeless tale of the struggle to find truth in belief, faith in fact, and friendship in times of fear. It is a new survival story, one that takes place post-climate apocalypse where our main character, Elon, thirty-seven, alone, hungry, and desperate to hear just another voice, is determined to discover what is next for a world sunken and on fire. When Elon discovers a hidden retreat deep in the woods of Northern Michigan, he soon finds himself on the verge of regeneration, as a pack of loners band together amidst a society turned hostile and an environment turned violent. No longer must he travel alone with his shopping cart, his jug of gasoline, and rotten crabapples. Now, he has the chance to rediscover friendship and intimacy. Johnson's novel asks the question--what would it take to start over--and readers walk away from Elon's story pondering their own responsibility to the climate-challenged world outside their own front yards. The chapters read like campfire tales, and Johnson's lyrical voice heightens Elon's perceptions of shame, guilt, and accountability. The setting of this treacherous world creates an intriguing backdrop as each night the new residents of the Kenneally Retreat Center slowly reveal stories from their lives before. These stories are admissions of guilt, secrets, failures, and grief, and they challenge our ability to forgive. Johnson uses the art of story-telling to critique the categorizing nature of the American identity.

Reviews

"With his brilliant fiction debut, THOUGH THE EARTH GIVES WAY, Mark S. Johnson has delivered a masterpiece. Beautifully written, with unforgettable settings and characters, this post-apocalyptic tale is a warning that disaster of unimaginable magnitude awaits us if we do not act urgently to mitigate the effects of man-made climate change... And yet, as grim as America has become in this not-too-distant future, THOUGH THE EARTH GIVES WAY is also a story about friendship and family, the power of memory, the fear and allure of the future, and, yes, even the hope that might be found in a living hell. Johnson, formerly a Providence Journal staff writer, is a health and science reporter for The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He shared the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting and has been a Pulitzer finalist three times. His science expertise shows in THOUGH THE EARTH GIVES WAY, but it does not drive the narrative. Storytelling, at the level of Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy, other masters of dystopian fiction, does... Johnson's command of voice in these separate stories is magnificent, with each character's tale fitting what we learned of them before their tellings -- and going beyond, deepening our understanding of each of them, and of humanity in general."

Author Bio

Mark S. Johnson, a health and science reporter for The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, shared the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. He has been a Pulitzer finalist on three other occasions. His reporting has been anthologized in three editions of The Best American Newspaper Narratives.

Before moving to Milwaukee, Johnson was a reporter at The Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin, The Rockford (Il) Register Star, The Haverhill (Mass.) Gazette, and weekly Provincetown (Mass.) Advocate.

He is a graduate of The University of Toronto.

This is his first novel.

He and his wife, the writer and editor Mary-Liz Shaw, rode out the pandemic with their son, composer Evan Johnson, and his partner, Socks Whitmore, at their home in Fox Point, Wisconsin.