{"product_id":"passersthrough-isbn-9781641294614","title":"Passersthrough","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA father and his estranged daughter reconnect to try to understand a decades-old trauma in this haunting novel, part ghost story, part lyrical exploration of family, aging, and how we remember the past.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt age 11, Helen disappeared in the wilderness of Mount Rainier National Park while camping with her father, Benjamin. She was gone for almost a week before being discovered and returned to her family. It is now 25 years later, and after more than two decades of estrangement, Helen and Benjamin reconnect at his home in Portland, Oregon, to try to understand what happened during the days she was gone. Meanwhile, Benjamin meets an odd pair, a woman and boy who seem driven to help him learn more about Helen’s disappearance and send him on a journey that will lead to a murder house, uncanny possession, and a bone-filled body of water known as Sad Clown Lake, a lake “that could only be found by getting lost, that was never in the same place twice.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePassersthrough\u003c\/i\u003e is a haunted, starkly lyrical novel set on the border between life and death.\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003ePassersthrough\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e“\u003ci\u003ePassersthrough\u003c\/i\u003e touches upon the unique trials and rewards a paternal connection brings, with added ingredients including spirit possession, moving lakes full of bones, and murder house—just for good measure . . . Mourning things both alive and dead and accepting hard truths resonate deeply in these pages and will utterly chill you . . . but contentedly so.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eFangoria\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Like Peter Rock's ten previous works of fiction, his new novel mixes characters who live on the margins of society with those in the mainstream.”\u003cbr\u003e —\u003cb\u003eThe Minneapolis Star Tribune\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003ePassersthrough\u003c\/i\u003e paints in broad strokes that, despite their occasionally maddening ambiguity, form an evocative portrait of grief and the magical thinking that suffuses our longings to communicate with the loved ones we’ve lost. It’s affecting, perhaps more so in the hours and days that follow the turning of the final page, when the hazy, inscrutable impressions left by Rock’s discerning hand continue to provoke and haunt.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Chicago Review of Books\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An unnerving mystery that dissects the way secrets can fester when left in the dark for too long . . . a haunting, lovely book, made even lovelier by its familiar, mossy setting.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Powell's Books Blog\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003ePassersthrough\u003c\/i\u003e, with its often-wild Northwest locales, explores the things we can’t know no matter how much we try, as well as our continued desire to uncover them.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Writing the Northwest\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A captivating page-turner . . . Its best elements, like its supernatural overtures, are reminiscent of Stephen King’s \u003ci\u003eThe Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon\u003c\/i\u003e (1999).”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An eerie account of the attempted reconciliation between an estranged father and daughter . . . Rock draws on the mountain scenery to create a surreal atmosphere, culminating in a haunting scene of disaster.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003ePassersthrough\u003c\/i\u003e is a difficult novel to pigeonhole—part ghost story, part family saga, part mystery, and all eerie and beautifully written. The results entwine into a book of not-so-easily solved mysteries, enigmas, and a haunting ending that chills while it warms the heart.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Bill C., An Unlikely Story (Plainville, MA)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A gripping narrative surrounding a camping experience and a trip to a 'murder house,' where Benjamin’s world collides with the 'other' world . . . I was mesmerized by this narrative and the people in it. Peter Rock is a champion of ethereal suspense!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Linda B., Auntie's Bookstore (Spokane, WA)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cu\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for the work of Peter Rock\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Haunting and elliptical.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Riveting, suspenseful.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e “Lyrical, mystifying, and wrenching.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Fascinating and moving.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Ursula K. Le Guin \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e“Surreal, haunting, elegiac.”  \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e —James Ellroy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ePeter Rock\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of ten previous works of fiction, including \u003ci\u003eMy Abandonment\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Alex Award and was adapted into the film \u003ci\u003eLeave No Trace\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and is a professor of creative writing at Reed College. His previous novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Night Swimmers\u003c\/i\u003e, was a finalist for the PEN\/Faulkner Award. He lives in Portland with his wife and two daughters.\u003cb\u003e10\/20\/2018 2:34 PM Transcription of Audio Capture\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Helen: All you have to do is talk and it records what you say and then  when I have time I can listen to it, no matter where I am, listen to  what you tell me. Or I can read it—my computer or even my phone can  transcribe what you say.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Benjamin: All these machines—I don’t know. Is it really necessary?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: For me, yes, I think so. It’s necessary, for now, to talk to you.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: All I want—\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: See how the green light comes on when it’s recording? The orange light means it’s standing by.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: Waiting.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: Yes.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: Getting ready to listen.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: You just have to be in range, close enough. I can put in our names,  and then the software can even learn to recognize, identify our voices,  the way we talk. It can even figure out punctuation, if it’s working  right. It can pause and wait, if there’s a break. Be quiet for ten  seconds and the light’ll go orange, like it was before.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e +\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: We can talk again.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: Can we turn it off for a while? Just talk without\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e it listening.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: Forget about it. Look at me.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: The light is green. It’s listening.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: Pretend it’s not there. Don’t look at it.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: Can it see me?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: Of course not.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: This is silly. So far all it’s recorded is a conversation about  itself. I’m trying, Helen, I want so much to talk with you, to  communicate. Can we talk about when you were a girl, and we used to go  out in the forest together?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: Let’s take it slower; I have to  go slow. Let’s begin with some kind of introduction—I’d like to hear  how you introduce yourself, actually. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: But you know me.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: Not really. Not for a long time.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: Okay, then. Let’s see. Typically, I breathe air, am omnivorous, and  have eyes on the front of my head. I’m bipedal, often wear clothing and  possess several skills. For instance, I’m handy with tools. The use of  tools was once thought to differentiate man from animals, or the lower  animals, yet scientists have witnessed primates with their straws and  sticks, procuring ants from African anthills, and some experts believe  that animals can cooperate with one another, even between species,  without even being aware of it. There’s a word for that relationship.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: Why are you talking like an encyclopedia?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: It’s hard to be serious; this isn’t exactly a conversation. And that word is “symbiotic.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: Some facts about yourself, I meant. Start with your name.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: My name is Benjamin Hanson. I’m seventy-six years old and my  estranged daughter has installed machines in my house to facilitate our  relationship. She believes I need a haircut, and is disappointed with  many aspects of how I’m living my life. She won’t discuss our past, and  refuses to stay in my perfectly good guest room. She stays at a hotel,  because her therapist has recommended that she not stay with me.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: About yourself, not about me.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: My name is Benjamin and I prefer to be called Benjamin. I wear  sandals year-round. I was born in September. This kind of thing? I  prefer baths to showers, and suspenders to belts. I once owned a  hardware store in Seattle, Washington, and before that I was born on  Vancouver Island, yet my parents were Americans. I had many adventures  there and later in Seattle had two children and a wife and then I had  only one child and no wife and no hardware store. And so I moved to  Portland, Oregon, to work for a time at Winks Hardware. I am now retired  and continue to reside here in Portland, where I spend my days speaking  clearly in the direction of a black plastic box with one piercing green  eye. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: I’m going to turn this off, now, to check and see that it’s working.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e + + +\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e BENJAMIN LEANED BACK in his chair, watching as Helen tapped the switch  on the front of the black machine. Its green light dimmed, then blinked  out. \u003cbr\u003e       She walked across the room, nervously took her phone  from her purse. Slender, she stood taller than he did, now—height was  something that had drawn him to her mother, so long ago. Now the light  from her phone illuminated her thin face, her sharp chin, her wide-set  eyes. Was her hair always so dark? It was cut straight across, not quite  touching her shoulders. She wore a black dress, her arms bare. Behind  her, on the wall, hung a framed photo from long ago; in it, she had to  be only two or three, laughing, wearing a stocking cap with round white  buttons sewn on to look like eyes. She sat on Benjamin’s shoulders, wore  rubber boots (he remembered the feeling of those heels, kicking his  chest), and her hands lay flat atop his head, where wispy hair still  grew. He was laughing in the picture, his mouth wide open, all his  teeth. \u003cbr\u003e       “What are you thinking about?” Helen said.\u003cbr\u003e       “Nothing.”\u003cbr\u003e       “You’re staring at me.”\u003cbr\u003e       “Your mother must have taken that picture.”\u003cbr\u003e       “What?” She turned to face the photograph. “Yes. That’s a good  one.” After a moment, she looked back at him. “When was the last time  you talked to her?”\u003cbr\u003e       “To your mother?” he said. “I don’t  know—it’s strange. Ten years, almost? At least. More. I can’t even  remember what we talked about. And now I guess we won’t talk again.”\u003cbr\u003e       “I wondered if you might come to the funeral.” Stepping closer,  Helen held out her phone. On its screen he could see lines of words, too  small to read.\u003cbr\u003e       “That’s the transcription,” she said, “the conversation we were just having.”\u003cbr\u003e       He reached out his hand, but she’d already put the phone in her  pocket. Stepping past him, brushing against his shoulder, she tapped the  switch and the orange light blinked on again, turning green as they  began to speak.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e10\/20\/2018 2:57 PM Transcription of Audio Capture\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e B: What if I have nothing to say? To the machines, I mean. When you’re not here, it’ll be different.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: That’s the thing—I’ll ask you questions with this bigger machine here.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: The fax machine.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: Yes, right. Every now and then, a page, a message from me will come  out. I’ll send you questions and then you can answer them by speaking.  And if you have questions for me, you can speak them out loud and I’ll  receive them and answer. It’ll be like a conversation.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: We’re having a conversation right now. A kind of conversation.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: But we live in different places, and it’s not always so easy to say  things. For lots of reasons. I got you the computer, you know.  Email—that’s one way, but you won’t even try—\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: Couldn’t you just send me a letter?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: I tried that. Twice. You never answered. You probably never opened  them. Look at that pile of mail on the table, there. Remember how it was  last month, before I put your bills on autopay? No electricity, no gas,  no heat.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: That always works itself out, eventually.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: I mean, your driver’s license is expired, your car registration—I hope you’re not driving. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: I can take care of myself. Couldn’t we just talk on the phone?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: We’ve talked about this, already. It’s the same problem—I can’t just  talk to you without stopping, without having time to process. It’s not  possible, not healthy.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: We’re talking, now. You seem fine to me.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: How I seem to you and how I feel are different. And we are talking,  but it’s not easy. I’m trying, I’m trying to find a way where it’s  comfortable, where I can communicate with you. This is what I came up  with, for now. Please don’t touch my arm.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: You act like  you’re afraid of me, and I’m just so happy to be with you again,  together, and I feel like you’re holding something against me that I  don’t even know what it is. If we can—\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: Just stop. You said, you agreed—\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e +\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e HELEN WALKED ACROSS the room, then. She opened the front door and  stepped right through it without a word or any warning. The light on the  machine blinked from green to orange.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Taking hold of his walking stick, Benjamin pulled himself to his feet and stood for a moment, finding his balance.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He leaned over the table, the pile of mail—not one envelope from an  actual person—and squinted through the window. Helen was walking away,  her steps quick and angry. She\u003cbr\u003e didn’t get into her rental car, but  kept on past it, down the sidewalk. The front door still open, Benjamin  stepped out onto the porch. He could see Helen turning the corner at the  end of the street, but he didn’t follow, knew he couldn’t catch her.  Next door, the neighbor boy, Javier, was coiling a long, green hose.  Javier looked up, waved, then dragged the hose up the driveway, out of  sight. Benjamin stepped back inside his house, closed the door. He  passed the unopened box, the computer Helen had sent him, then sat back  down in his chair, facing the two machines, waiting for his daughter’s  return.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e . . .\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: It was too much, it started feeling like it was too much.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: I’m sorry if I said something I shouldn’t’ve said. But when you go  like that, without saying anything, it feels like you might never come  back.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: You’re being melodramatic. My flight’s not for three hours, and I already told you I’d be back.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e B: When?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e H: A few weeks, next month? 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