Disaster Falls: A Family Story

Is there anything more devastating than the death of a child? It is an inversion of the universe, a shattering of the heart, an unrepairable rip in the fabric of life. For Stephane Gerson and his family, it became a terrible reality when 8 year old Owen drowned on a family rafting vacation. And this memoir is one of the ways in which Gerson not only acknowledged their huge loss but a way that allowed him to finally look more closely at what happened that day, to understand and to accept.

When you plan a vacation with your two young children, you would never imagine that your family of four would be a family of three before it is over. The Gersons, father Stephane, mother Alison, oldest son Julian, and youngest son Owen couldn't have show more either. Their vacation was supposed to be safe for families with children, a rafting trip on the Green River in Utah. But they left New York as four and returned home as three, Owen having drowned at the spot known as Disaster Falls. Gerson chronicles his overwhelming grief at losing Owen as well as the different journeys that Alison and Julian also took through the days, weeks, months, and years after Owen's death. He speaks of the isolation of sorrow, the pain and anguish, his guilt over what happened that day, and the shocked huddle of a family violently rent apart in this emotionally devastating memoir.

The non-linear time line jumps from the rawness of immediately after the accident to what led up to it and back again as the family learns to negotiate life after Owen. The whole of how Owen died isn't fully presented until well into the book, Gerson coming close to it before shutting down the remembrance many times, only telling the whole of it when he feels he's capable and strong enough to look at it. The story is heart rending and the reader can feel the ache and the searching in the haunting writing even years after Owen's death. The book is clearly a way for Gerson to honor his son and his memory of his son, to mourn the loss not only of the boy that he was, but also the whole of the imagined life he never had a chance to live. There are repetitions here but they so closely echo the stunned and frozen rehashing of what happened, the what ifs, and the if onlys that they seem entirely fitting. Not easy to read, this is a thoughtful, introspective, quite beautiful look at a family and a father going on forever changed by their shared loss for those readers who don't mind being emotionally wrung out at the end of a book. show less

I'm often ruthlessly self-critical for reading news articles about tragedies like this one that happened to the Gerson family. I have no business reading a blurb about the unthinkable, and yet I do. Over and over. This honest storytelling is what I'm seeking and will never find when I read those articles.

I have never lost a child, and I'm crushed having read what happened to Owen. I have experienced grief, tragedy, loss, and the guilt & shame that comes from being a member of that tragedy. I just finished reading this book today and haven't processed how it has changed me, but it has. It has added new vocabulary, acceptance, and thoughts to my old mental loops of loss. This is a painful, honest, and in many ways hopeful book that gets show more at so much of what we don't discuss about our contemporary and ancestral collective human experiences of living and dying. show less

This book is gorgeously written and deeply moving. I found it enormously painful to read, but also very useful. Although I have never experienced the loss of a child, I experience this loss vicariously in my work on a reasonably regular basis. You go on with your job by separating yourself from the ongoing grief experienced by the family, and reading this was almost too much for me. That said, I was glad to have read it by the end. The relationship between the author and his surviving son was particularly interesting to me, as was the idea of going for walks with the spirit of his deceased son. Highly recommended.

Not that long ago, parents did not have the expectation that all their children would survive to adulthood. Accidents and disease were commonplace and could suddenly change a family configuration. The advent of modern medicine with antibiotics and vaccines gave modern parents the illusion that their children would always be with them. Still there is no guarantee that our children will outlive us as a quick glance at recent news events makes all too clear.

The Gerson family went river rafting while on vacation in Utah. Friends had recommended the outing and the brochure made it sound like an ideal family adventure. While navigating the ominously named Disaster Falls on the Green River, Gerson and his eight year old son Owen were thrown show more out of their ducky boat by the swift currents.

In an instant the family of four became a family of three. Disaster Falls is Gerson's account of how he and his wife and surviving son dealt with their loss, individually and together. Extended family members, classmates and colleagues, even strangers offer insights or, too frequently, show themselves unable to deal with such an unimaginable circumstance. Gerson records his memories, gradually revealing details of who Owen was and their last hours together. At times it almost feels like trespassing as Gerson examines those memories and tries to find his way forward. He describes the grief, anger, guilt and fears that periodically wash over him. He studies the words of writers and famous figures who endured similar losses. He worries if his wife blames him or if their marriage will survive. He wonders how to parent the son he still has.

A parent who has lost a child is in some ways a frightening figure to us because we do not want to acknowledge that such tragedies can occur. Gerson has given us a glimpse into that terrible realm we hope never to have to traverse. A moving and beautifully written essay, recommended for those who have the courage to contemplate a child's mortality. show less

I received this book as a member of the Early Readers program. I misunderstood the book initially, thinking it was fiction. So, to say I stumbled upon this heartbreak is somewhat lame, but truthful. About 100 pages in, I flipped to the back and read the word MEMOIR (clearly written, it was my own oversight.) Knowing Owen lived and died made this story much harder to endure. But I read through to the end. I am sorry for the family, for the heartbreak, for going through a trauma both together and separately. It compounds the tragedy to not feel understood...almost as if you are still responding to the loss the wrong way, because you are not responding at the same pace as your spouse.

I say I stumbled onto this book because I wouldn't have show more picked it up without some forethought. I too lost a child. In an uncomfortable coincidence, my name is also Alison. Reading a book on loss, where the subject keeps referring to "Alison's reaction" was unsettling. In my own life, I have come to understand that no one can choose to say the right thing to a parent in mourning. Each situation is unique. Something poignant to one person, could be hurtful to another. I admire this father's bravery in documenting such a personal journey. I hope that writing it down, helped him make sense of the tragedy. show less

Unimaginable. I cannot comprehend how to continue to be a father, or find the ability to focus at work, or have the energy to sustain a marriage, or not lose myself in pain, sorrow and rage if one of my children were taken from me at eight years of age. Nor can I comprehend having the strength and willingness to share that experience in such an unflinching and honest manner as Stephane Gerson does in his memoir Disaster Falls: A Family Story. Gerson’s son Owen drowned on a family rafting trip down the Green River when the “ducky” two-man raft he and his father were in hit the rocks on the Class III rapid known as “Disaster Falls.”

Gerson’s writing is poignant as he describes the days and years following Owen’s death, but at show more the same time captures the numbing and unmovable state that seems to pave him into that place forever. Owen’s brother, Julian, and his mother each deal with grief in their own way, and here too Gerson is able to honor the unique expressions of each, and at the same time describe the emotional rivers that tragedy has carved between them, and that none of them seem able to traverse.

Life’s sadness and celebrations continue. Julian continues to grow and leaves for college. Gerson’s father dies after a long life that ended with a battle against cancer. Gerson and his wife somehow clung to one another keeping the canyon carved by Owen’s death from growing large enough to separate them from one another. And relatively late in life, their third son is born. Sorrow and joy each have their own headwater and their path through life leaves marks both terrible and grand. Disaster Falls: A Family Story is a beautiful perspective of the entire landscape.

Crown Publishing will be releasing Disaster Falls: A Family Story by Stephane Gerson in January 2017. show less

Disaster Falls is a moving, intimate and honest account of death, grief and hope. In this book, author Stephane Gerson attempts to deal with his grief following the death of his youngest son, Owen (in a rafting acident) as well as the grief of his wife and eldest son, the expectations of society, and the way which the death of a child is processed and acknowledged by others. Gerson also examines the relationship of his ageing parents and the subsequent death of his father, which allows him to consider grief from another angle. This moving meditation on grief and family, and how we should mourn and remember the dead, is a difficult read in some places, but ultimately worth pursuing.