The Ski Jumpers
A Novel
A writer and former ski jumper facing a terminal diagnosis takes one more leap—into a past of soaring flights and broken family bonds
The dream of ski jumping haunts Jon Bargaard. As thrilling as those soaring flights, as precarious as his family’s complicated love, as tender as his backward gaze while disease takes him inexorably forward, Peter Geye’s gorgeous prose brings Jon and his brother to the ultimate choice: each other, or the secrets they’ve held tightly for so long.
"The delicate balance of family dynamics and the unshakable grip that the past holds on the present are center stage in the heartfelt latest from Geye."
—Publishers Weekly
A brilliant ski jumper has to be fearless—Jon Bargaard remembers this well. His memories of daring leaps and risks might be the key to the book he’s always wanted to write: a novel about his family, beginning with Pops, once a champion ski jumper himself, who also took Jon and his younger brother Anton to the heights. But Jon has never been able to get past the next, ruinous episode of their history, and now that he has received a terrible diagnosis, he’s afraid he never will.
In a bravura performance, Peter Geye follows Jon deep into the past he tried so hard to leave behind, telling the story he spent his life escaping. It begins with a flourish, his father and his hard-won sweetheart fleeing Chicago, and a notoriously ruthless gangster, to land in North Minneapolis. That, at least, was the tale Jon heard, one that becomes more and more suspect as he revisits the events that eventually tore the family in two, sending his father to prison, his mother to the state hospital, and placing himself, a teenager, in charge of thirteen-year-old Anton. Traveling back and forth in time, Jon tells his family’s story—perhaps his last chance to share it—to his beloved wife Ingrid, circling ever closer to the truth about those events and his own part in them, and revealing the perhaps unforgivable violence done to the brothers’ bond.
The dream of ski jumping haunts Jon as his tale unfolds, daring time to stop just long enough to stick the landing. As thrilling as those soaring flights, as precarious as the Bargaard family’s complicated love, as tender as Jon’s backward gaze while disease takes him inexorably forward, Peter Geye’s gorgeous prose brings the brothers to the precipice of their relationship, where they have to choose: each other, or the secrets they’ve held so tightly for so long.
Cover alt text: Lightly gradiented periwinkle sky background with white cloud in upper right corner and snow in lower left. At top, a cutout black-and-white image of a ski jumper appears and is cut off at the neck. Foreground: Book title in all-caps red, with author name beneath in all-caps white and “A Novel” beneath in all-cap dark grey. All text reads at a motion slant.
The Ski Jumpers is a remarkable story about love: between two brothers, and between a father and son. But it's also about the intense love of place, and a time in three lives when gravity had less hold and a spirit might fly. Peter Geye brilliantly captures the physicality of our connection to a landscape and to the moments when—despite incalculable loss—we bring the best of ourselves.
Peter Heller, author of The Dog Stars, The River, and The Guide
Peter Geye writes full-hearted novels made for winter, and The Ski Jumpers is his best to date. I love these stoic Bargaards, whose religion of flight embraces profane saints, secret chambers, and dazzling acts of sacrifice. Geye wraps his tale in prose that soars as we hold our breath, then brings it all home with the elegance of a Telemark landing. If you already know his work, this book will surprise and delight you; if you're new to Peter Geye, The Ski Jumpers is the perfect place to start.
Leif Enger, author of Virgil Wander
With great warmth and insight, Peter Geye has crafted a multigenerational epic of a talented family haunted by secrets and mystery. At its heart is the story of two estranged Minnesota brothers, each devastated in different ways by the past and facing uncertain futures, who must now rekindle their bond to save each other. With a family history forged by crime, betrayal, abandonment, and the unalienable thrill and heartbreak of a dangerous sport, the only thing more elusive than victory is forgiveness—and forgiving oneself may be the hardest task of all. Geye's tender, patient storytelling, exhilarating tension, and indelibly Midwestern characters make The Ski Jumpers unforgettable.
J. Ryan Stradal, author of The Lager Queen of Minnesota
This elegiac waking dream of a writer and former ski jumper colliding with his own mortality is a timeless, weightless leap into the winter air of memory; with landing will come irreversible loss, and an ending. In Peter Geye’s achingly beautiful story of city and north woods, of complex family relationships and surprising sacrifices and strengths, an appreciative maturity emerges, a wisdom grown from age and experience.
Linda LeGarde Grover, author of In the Night of Memory
Like its ski jumping protagonists, this family saga takes flight with a hammering heart and soars through questions of debt, failure, courage, and reconciliation. It's both distinctly Minnesotan and hugely humane . . . I was deeply moved.
Kawai Strong Washburn, author of Sharks in the Time of Saviors
The strong physicality intrinsic to Peter’s storytelling, along with moving in time, form the scaffolding of this family tale set between Minneapolis and the North Woods. An ideal novel to savor by a fireplace with a warm blanket and hot cup of coffee as the snow beats the windows.
Lake Superior Magazine
The delicate balance of family dynamics and the unshakable grip that the past holds on the present are center stage in the heartfelt latest from Geye.
Publishers Weekly
My notion from Ski Jumpers by Peter Geye is that a similar trajectory upward and outward may represent an image that traces this fine novel in its characters and its geography toward a genuine place in UP literature.
UP Book Review
Geye writes brilliantly about the action of ski jumping and the mix of fear and wonder young athletes encounter. The book makes a worthy read regardless of the season.
Mankato Free Press
A former ski jumper, Geye has written a story about love and alienation between brothers and their love for their father, a former champion jumper.
Pioneer Press
Filled with complex family relationships, sacrifices and love, The Ski Jumpers is a heart-wrenching novel that everyone should read.
Northern Wilds
Lifelong Minneapolis resident Peter Geye has written the perfect novel to help readers get excited about another Wisconsin winter. Geye is a former ski jumper, just like the book’s narrator, and his experience allows descriptions of the sport to soar sky-high.
Isthmus
If you’re a fan of arresting family dramas with a bit of a twist, complex and provocative characters, breathtaking landscapes wrapped in luminous prose, The Ski Jumpers is your next read.
Superior Reads
A former ski jumper himself, Peter Geye brings authenticity and exhilaration to those sections of his new novel that concern the sport.
Minnesota Alumni Magazine
A wonderful story of two brothers, what joined and divided them, and their reconciliation after the death of their father.
Madison Magazine
If Geye is Minnesota’s Thoreau, then his Pond is a frozen lake.
Star Tribune
Contents
I
Dream, Memory, the Thing Itself
Like Shattering Glass
An Accumulation
You’ll Make a Girl Jealous
Every Old Ski Jumper’s a Liar
II
Telemark Landing
Conscience Does Make Cowards of Us All
Just Because You Don’t Believe in God
The Meat Market
The Greatest Depth
III
Palimpsests
The Bingo Hall
Closing Time
The School for Boys
Just a Wolf
IV
Lake Placid
Night of Nights
Close Your Eyes and Dream It Back
