Review: The Fall-Down Effect by Liz Johnston
This is a wonderful book about forests and families! They're more alike than you think, and both need careful tending and care to thrive. I loved that this is a book that has its roots firmly in the British Columbia forests and takes a long view over decades of what it takes for an ecology to succeed, or suffer. I reviewed this book for The British Columbia Review, originally published here on The BC Review on April 21, 2026.
***
For those of us who call British Columbia home, it’s hard not to be awed by the breathtaking beauty of the forest, from the rainforest on the coast to the more temperate forests of the southeastern region. The forest is both a precious ecosystem and a resource, and so becomes a flashpoint for the inherent tension between environmentalism and commercialization.
This conflict is at the heart of Revelstoke, BC-raised Torontonian Liz Johnston’s book The Fall-Down Effect. Against this natural background, the debut novelist also explores how a thriving family is a unique ecosystem with its own fragility and resilience.
The novel is set over three distinct eras. Opening in 1989, a young family of four resides in a small town in southeastern BC: mom Lynn, dad Tom, and their three kids Sylvia, Fern, and River. Logging is an integral part of the town’s economy, and one that Lynn believes is deeply flawed. She and Tom were activists in Vancouver before they had kids; but Tom has mellowed in his views while Lynn has continued to protest, her stance increasingly vocal.
The kids are caught in the middle. At 11, academically-oriented Sylvia is well on her way to mothering her younger siblings in the absence of consistent parenting from Lynn; 7-year-old Fern is the budding environmentalist of the group and in sync with her mother’s views; and 6-year-old River is artistic, and just trying to make sense of his world.
From the outset, Johnston establishes the primacy of the forest in the novel: it is ever-present, both on the page descriptively and in the characters’ thoughts and intentions—and that added to my enjoyment of the book. On the first page, young Fern is at one with the forest, and this never really changes. Hiding in a tree—
She heard Sylvia calling her name and tried to squeeze deeper, imagining her skin and flesh sinking into the ridged surface. The hemlock welcomed her. The bark smelled like dirt and toast and moss and cinnamon, and like none of these. It smelled only like itself, and it was her favourite smell.
This first section showcases Lynn’s struggle to engage as a parent while striving to remain true to her activism. In one pivotal chapter, she drives the kids up a logging road and chains herself with them across the road, blocking the logging trucks. Fern is in her element, but the other two kids are ill at ease, cold, hungry, and scared. Sylvia realizes her mom hasn’t packed adequate food and has acted impulsively, putting them at risk. The scene is harrowing.
Lynn leaves her family and moves to Kelowna as the novel grapples with the thorny question of where one’s responsibility lies. Though environmentalism is a worthy cause and thriving forests are life-giving, so are children and one’s commitment to nurturing them. Lynn rationalizes her choices: “She wasn’t abandoning her children. She just needed to figure out what kind of difference she could make without them, without being defined as their mother.” Lynn’s parenthood and activism tear her apart, and she makes a decision that each reader will have to evaluate on their own.
Another strength of the novel is Johnston’s appealing use of three time periods; it gives each of the main characters time to grow. For the children in particular, there is ample time for the reader to ponder the intersectional effects of nature and nurture. Multiple points of view allow for ample space for Johnston’s characters (one other authorial strategy I appreciated).
Twelve years later, in 2001, the kids are in their late teens and early twenties and have taken divergent paths. Sylvia comes to the forest through academia, working on her MF degree at UBC, trying to effect change from the inside; Fern is increasingly militant in her environmental activism; and River is an artist and a tree planter, living and breathing the outdoors and reforestation.
In that section Fern’s actions have devastating consequences for the town, her family, and herself; she flees. I loved the way that Johnston brings this family to life as a living, breathing entity, just like the forest ecology is. There’s such a complex interplay between each member, and in this second part, it’s the kids who fill the pages.
The narrative continues to explore the nature of responsibility for one’s choices. Sylvia blames Lynn’s influence for Fern’s actions, but River won’t allow Fern off the hook:
“…but this is so extreme. How could she make a choice that meant never seeing us again?”
“Look at where we are,” said Sylvia, pitying him. “Mom taught her that family is expendable for the right cause.”
But now it seemed as if River pitied her, He looked at her for what felt like a long while before saying, “You can’t blame this on Mom, Syl. She’s let us down a thousand times, but she doesn’t deserve responsibility for this. Fern did this herself.”
It’s also hard not to feel empathy for Fern, separated from her family and coming to terms with her actions and her path forward. She’s given up the relative safety of her small town British Columbian environment:
But safety could be a trap. For safety, well-intentioned folks kept their mouths shut as ever-larger corporations waged one-sided war against life on this planet. They protested only when they had a permit. They backed down when the police showed up, when riots broke out, when tear gas started pouring. They couldn’t face the front lines, so they stayed home and hoped. She would not just hope.
Finally in 2022, the three siblings are sneaking up on early middle-age and spread out across the Pacific Northwest. A wildfire threatens Lynn’s Penticton home, and most of the family members are reunited during the crisis. There is a reckoning of sorts, and a comment on how our personalities both solidify with age along long-held lines, but can also soften in their vehemence. The ending pages brought fewer dramatic events and a quieter contemplation of the challenges of remaining cohesive as a family, and the value of healing in relationships. The same can be said of remaining in communion with the forest: the relationship with it changes for each family member over many years, but it is always a force both precious and powerful.
The “fall-down effect” is a well-known concept in forestry. At one point, Sylvia stands in a logged area with saplings at knee height: “She’d learned the concept of the fall-down effect in school, how timber production declined as old growth was depleted-logged. Whatever grew back would not equal what had been lost.” There is so much hope in this satisfying novel, yet it’s balanced with realism, both environmental and in its view of family relationships. Although what is destroyed—deliberately or unintentionally—can’t always be restored, with care and nurturing something different and good might grow anew.
Comments
Post a Comment