Desolation Ghosts is a 65,000-word adult literary fiction novel in the vein of The Human Stain. It is set in North Cascades National Park and is about a missing traumatized female veteran with alcohol and relationship addictions who changes her mind about killing herself, but then falls off a mountain and must survive in the wilderness while park rangers battle over how much effort should be spent to locate her. The story takes place during the Covid-19 pandemic and the beginning of law enforcement reforms following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. This book will appeal to readers who are interested in national parks, outdoor recreation, the Pacific Northwest, and the controversial issue of how emergency services treat people with mental health challenges. It includes exciting stories, based on real-life events, about using rock climbing and short-haul helicopter techniques to rescue a pack string mule who fell off a trail and a mountain climber who fell off a crag, a shoot-out and its impact on park rangers, a couple drownings, an aquatic body recovery and other sad outdoor tragedies, and funny and scary encounters with bears and other wildlife. If you like Jack Kerouac, Nevada Barr, Bree Loewen, Jon Krakauer, Michael Connelly, James Dickey's Deliverance, Matthew Quick's The Silver Linings Playbook or Scott Heim's Mysterious Skin, you may enjoy Desolation Ghosts.

Saturday, November 6, 2021

How and why Desolation Ghosts was born

In the winter of 2020-2021, a man with mental illness left a suicide note in his car and disappeared into the woods in the Pacific Northwest. He was known to be paranoid, probably dangerous, and carrying a gun, which affected how his search was handled. Should it have changed how emergency services responded or should he have gotten the same resources as someone not in the throes of a mental health crisis would have?

In February and March, 2021, a book on the subject - Desolation Ghosts - exploded out of me, based on my experiences working as a dispatcher at North Cascades National Park. The majority of the book turned out to be a love letter about the park itself, as well as fictionalized word photos of people, events, animals, and places I experienced there. 
at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)