Disaster Falls: A Family Story

Disaster Falls: A Family Story

A haunting chronicle of what endures when the world we know is swept away
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On a day like any other, on a rafting trip down Utahâ€™s Green River, StÃ©phane Gersonâ€™s eight-year-old son, Owen, drowned in a spot known as Disaster Falls. That night, as darkness fell, StÃ©phane huddled in a tent with his wife, Alison, and their older son, Julian, trying to understand what seemed inconceivable. â€œItâ€™s just the three of us now,â€ Alison said over the sounds of a light rain and, nearby, the rushing river. â€œWe cannot do it alone. We have to stick together.â€

Disaster Falls chronicles the aftermath of that day and their shared determination to stay true to Alisonâ€™s resolution. At the heart of the book is an unflinching portrait of a marriage tested. Husband and wife grieve in radically different ways that threaten to isolate each of them in their post-Owen worlds. (â€œHe feels so far,â€ StÃ©phane says when Alison shows him a selfie Owen had taken. â€œHe feels so close,â€ she says.) With beautiful specificity, StÃ©phane shows how they resist that isolation and reconfigure their marriage from within.

As StÃ©phane navigates his grief, the memoir expands to explore how society reacts to the death of a child. He depicts the â€œgood deathâ€ of his father, which reveals an altogther different perspective on mortality. He excavates the history of the Green Riverâ€”rife with hazards not mentioned in the rafting companyâ€™s brochures. He explores how stories can both memorialize and obscure a personâ€™s lifeâ€”and how they can rescue us.

Disaster Falls is a powerful account of a life cleaved in twoâ€”raw, truthful, and unexpectedly consoling.
Country USA
Manufacturer Crown
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2017-01-24
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Crown
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2017-01-24
Format	Kindle eBook

Disaster Falls: A Family Story

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