Bret Anthony Johnston at BookPeople

Remember Me Like This begins where most stories might end.

Justin Campbell disappeared four years ago, and his family is shattered by the loss. His father is having an affair. His mother spends her nights as a volunteer overseeing an injured dolphin. His younger brother becomes a pro on the skateboard Justin left behind.

Suddenly Justin is found. His family must tiptoe around the lurking truth of the missing years – the creepy kidnapper who may or may not face justice, the horrific things that have happened to the boy, and most of all how to piece a family back into a whole.

Bret Anthony Johnston, who reads from this, his first novel, at 7pm Tuesday at BookPeople, is the master of the family drama. Everyone walks lightly, afraid to upset the delicate balance, afraid of their own failings, terrified of the truth. This older Justin is not the boy they remember, at least not completely. He cuddles a snake, stays up nights and sleeps days. He nips at the edge of revealing what happened to him.

Johnston’s writing is meticulous, deep, often funny, and always truthful about what it means to be a human being in this world. The novel fulfills the promise of Johnston’s lauded 2004 story collection Corpus Christi that saw the coastal city as a metaphor for impending doom. A hurricane may hit at any moment, and, try as you might, you’ll never be fully prepared.

Consider Johnston’s path to here. He was a directionless Del Mar College student and avid skateboarder when Robert Stone did an author talk on campus. He was hooked and set his sights on telling stories. After a brief stint as a professional skateboarder, he marched off toward that goal. These days, he directs the creative writing program at Harvard, but his prose is firmly planted in the Texas heat.

In Remember Me Like This, Corpus Christi is the oppressive place where Justin was hidden in plain sight. The novel delves expertly into the fear that lurks in parenthood: How much can I really protect my child from the big, bad world out there? What if I fail? The heat of it pulls you down. The storm is always on the horizon.

What Johnston doesn’t give us is neat answers. No details about Justin’s abuse in captivity. No courtroom drama. Instead, the author puts his target on the American family in all of its wobbly beauty.