Liz Johnston's The Fall-Down Effect

Reviewed by Michelle Sinclair

(Book*hug Press, 2026)

In this stunning debut novel by Liz Johnston, readers are drawn into the Pacific Northwest woodland environment from the first page, where the forest is introduced as a central character in its own right: “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.” The novel goes on to explore a family’s attempts to reconcile their responsibilities to one another with their obligations to their principles and their community, which includes the old-growth forest that surrounds their remote logging town.

Johnston beautifully unites the threads of five family members, skillfully weaving through their varying perspectives and conveying their respective relationships to the forest: a shortcut to adventure and escape; a means of production and employment; artistic or spiritual inspiration; a life force in need of protection at any cost. In playing a number of roles throughout the novel, the forest provokes timely, relevant questions about people’s behaviour and priorities.

The story begins in 1989. Tom works for Parks Canada and Lynn homeschools their three children, Sylvia, Fern and River. Lynn has been restless since she and Tom moved to the small logging town. She’s frustrated at home with the children and longs for the days of activism and free love. In a pivotal scene, she engages in an act of protest and impulsively includes the children in her plan. Johnston is deft in conveying Lynn’s motivations, while leaving room for the reader to decide whether her actions endanger her children.

To her credit, Lynn doesn’t care what others think, and is more concerned with standing up for her beliefs. She is layered and complex, and one could be forgiven for feeling unsure whether her motivations are genuine, whether she’s chasing a nostalgic past, or whether she is a narcissist who goes too far. The children are superbly rendered in their innocent yearning for their mother’s love, their own burgeoning sense of individuality and independence, and in their understanding of their mother as an imperfect individual whose actions have consequences that affect relationships outside of their home life. 

The natural world is a metaphor throughout the novel, but perhaps it’s most evocative when the family fractures for the first time. Lynn convinces herself that her children will be better off without her, and moves to Kelowna. The decision could be rooted in ambivalence about motherhood, or because she hopes to rekindle her activism and relationship with a former lover. Her rationale explains that 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.”

The next section is set in 2001. Tom has remarried, and the children are older teens or on the cusp of young adulthood. Sylvia is a graduate student, River is an artist, and Fern decides to engage in what the police eventually determine is an act of eco-terrorism.  She doesn’t tell anyone of her plan, but she does admit to her brother that she spends so much of her life “angry that no one’s paying attention, right? If they are, then they don’t know what to do about shit. Or they’re like mom and it’s all about ego.”

Sylvia and River are furious with their mother and sister, though they understand them to some extent: they also love the forest. Sylvia “wanted to know how everything worked, the forest and the province’ s forestry system. She couldn’t care about the pine beetle under the microscope if she couldn’t see it in the context of the splendour and the carnage she held in her eyes here and now.” At the same time, the children have all “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.”

The family’s attempts to understand one another through their arguably limited human perspectives and emotional lense–ranging from self-interest and greed to empathy, curiosity and love—is reflected in the ways they also relate to the natural world. Does the forest need them, the way they need it? How much are they willing to sacrifice for one another?

The third and final section of the novel takes place in 2020, during the first summer of the Covid-19 pandemic. Forest fires engulf parts of British Columbia. While they’ve ostensibly been isolating themselves from one another, this section reinforces the importance of relationships in the face of catastrophe. Some of the family reunite, and they’re faced with all they’ve tried to do, and all that has been lost. Through their discussions, we’re encouraged to consider practical and philosophical questions: How to protect the natural world without causing human suffering? What is the price to be paid, and to what extent will we be obliged to forgo our comfort, family, or safety?

Fern, for one, believes “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.”
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The novel demands answers to thought-provoking questions about ambition and ego, family responsibility and autonomy. In the face of climate emergencies, have we taken action, or have we simply hoped for change? What alternatives are possible? The Fall Down Effect is a compelling novel that takes readers deep into a richly described world, while encouraging them to consider whether they could also do more than just hope. 

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Michelle Sinclair worked as a human and labour rights policy analyst for many years. Her work appears in Literary Review of Canada, The Antigonish Review, CRAFT Literary and other journals. Her short story was longlisted for the 2025 CBC short story prize. Her first novel, Almost Visible, was published in 2022. She lives in Ottawa.