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OLDER FICTION
Smith, Roland

Descent

240 pp. | Houghton | October, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-0-544-85976-0 $17.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-358-05602-7 $9.99
(2) YA In the fourth (and final) installment about Peak ­Marcello (beginning with Peak, rev. 5/07), the ­sixteen-year-old has survived an avalanche on Hkakabo Razi and descends into the Tibetan jungle, pursued by Captain Shek of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Peak, his world-famous mountain-climbing father, and their longtime "mystery monk" friend Zopa hole up in a Buddhist monastery hidden away from the world in the Tsangpo River gorge. The fast pace of the adventure takes a meditative turn here, and the experience changes Peak. By story's end, he seems more interested in following Zopa's advice to "go out and do good things" than to continue scaling skyscrapers and mountains. This volume stands alone but is enriched by the prior entries, as Peak ponders a future seemingly without climbing: "The climbing itch was gone. I had left it somewhere on the slopes of the Land of Dawn-Lit Mountains."
Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2021

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