Lastly and ongoingly: sister Tricia, brothers Tad and Harris, Uncle Rick and Aunty Kathy, for all the love, complexity, and humor of family, amen.

TIM JOHNSTON, a native of Iowa City, is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of Memphis. He is the author of a young adult novel, Never So Green, and the story collection Irish Girl, winner of the prestigious Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. Descent is his first adult novel. (Author photo by Dave Boerger.)

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ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

Post Office Box 2225

Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

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WORKMAN PUBLISHING

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New York, New York 10014

© 2015 by Tim Johnston.

All rights reserved.

A portion of this novel appears, in slightly different form, as the short story “Up There” in the author’s story collection Irish Girl, 2009, University of North Texas Press. Another portion first appeared, in slightly different form, on NarrativeMagazine.com as the short story “Two Years,” and was then anthologized in Best of the West 2011: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri, 2011, University of Texas Press.

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN 978-1-61620-430-3 (ebook)