Tom's Crossing

While folks still focus on the crimes that shocked the small city of Orvop, Utah, in the fall of 1982, and the trials that followed, many remember an adventure that took place beyond municipal lines in mountains that could shrug even the bravest from their backs, as one Orvop local put it. Another characterized the astonishing journey as crazy as it was foolish and simply beyond imagination. But those kids went for it anyway.

Not that such daring was entirely unexpected considering how some of those involved included the likes of young Tom Gatestone, already a bit of an Orvop legend, and his friend Kalin March, new to the area; the two of them took it upon themselves to rescue a couple of neglected horses from the Porch paddocks on Willow and Oak.

Who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t?

For sure no one expected the dead to rise, but they did. For sure no one expected the mountain to fall, but it did. For sure no one expected an act of courage so great, and likewise so appalling, that it still staggers the heart and mind of anyone who knows anything about the Katanogos massif, to say nothing of Pillars Meadow.

As one Orvop high-school teacher would describe that extraordinary feat days before she died: "For sure, no one expected Kalin March to tell Old Porch: 'You get what you deserve when you ride with cowards.'"

The author of House of Leaves returns with a magisterial, page-turning epic about two friends determined to rescue a pair of horses set for slaughter. In this sweeping tale of mythic proportions, populated by extraordinary characters, the ghosts of the American West, and bursting with unexpected humor, Danielewski tells a masterful story of determination, perseverance, and humanity in the face of long odds and adverse fate.