Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow: The Dark Side of Extreme Adventure FROM THE PUBLISHER
Without risk, say mountaineers, there would be none of the self-knowledge that comes from pushing life to its extremes. For them, perhaps, it is worth the cost. But when tragedy strikes, what happens to the people left behind? Why would anyone choose to invest in a future with a high-altitude risk-taker? What is life like in the shadow of the mountain? Such questions have long been taboo in the world of mountaineering. Now, the spouses, parents and children of internationally renowned climbers finally break their silence, speaking out about the dark side of adventure.
Maria Coffey confronted one of the harshest realities of mountaineering when her partner Joe Tasker disappeared on the Northeast Ridge of Everest in 1982. In Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow, Coffey offers an intimate portrait of adventure and the conflicting beauty, passion, and devastation of this alluring obsession. Through interviews with the world's top climbers, or their widows and families-Jim Wickwire, Conrad Anker, Lynn Hill, Joe Simpson, Chris Bonington, Ed Viesturs, Anatoli Boukreev, Alex Lowe, and many others-she explores what compels men and women to give their lives to the high mountains. She asks why, despite the countless tragedies, the world continues to laud their exploits. With an insider's understanding, Coffey reveals the consequences of loving people who pursue such risk-the exhilarating highs and inevitable lows, the stress of long separations, the constant threat of bereavement, and the lives shattered in the wake of climbing accidents.
Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow is a powerful, affecting and important book that exposes the far reaching personal costs ofextreme adventure.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Coffey, whose previous book, Fragile Edge, detailed the death of the man she loved on Mt. Everest, here examines the psychological and emotional side of extreme adventurers and that of their family members. For these profiles, Coffey draws on her own experience as well as that of other climbers and their spouses. A common theme emerges, of the powerful appeal of the next challenge, even when climbers have suffered severe injuries and are leaving spouses and young children at home. Although Coffey doesn't offer conclusive reasons as to why partners tolerate such behavior, she deftly examines the unique bond between an explorer and his or her family. She recounts the surprise of a climber who learns the author has married a non-climber: "I laughed at his presumption that I'd seek out another mountaineer, yet I understood the reasoning behind it. The mountaineering tribe is a comforting place for the partner of a climber. Its protective circle shuts out the questioning eyes of the outside world. There's no need to explain why someone would chose, again and again, to put himself in danger-it is understood, accepted as normal, seen as admirable." Climbers repeatedly put themselves at risk, says Coffey, and return to climb after suffering serious injuries, even amputations. According to Coffey, competition among climbers (and a sense of self-definition through climbing) is simply an essential part of their lives. Coffey's interviews brim with rugged honesty, and some of the accident details are gruesome and potentially disturbing, yet her book's combination of memoir and psychological overview is unique. Agent, Susan Golomb. (Nov.) Forecast: A first serial in Outside magazine's September issue, Coffey's planned reading at Canada's Banff Mountain Festival and the success of Fragile Edge (it won the International Literary Mountain Prize) should make this popular among the mountaineering crowd. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Able exploration of mountaineering's personal costs, placed in context among the pleasures of climbing high and hard. Why do people climb? asks Coffey. And why would anyone love someone who repeatedly risks his or her life in the mountains? For the climbers, some suggest that their thirst for the mountains is an addiction; others, like Reinhold Messner, believe that "endurance, fear, suffering cold, and the state between survival and death are such strong experiences that we want them again and again." For those who experience the loss of a loved one while climbing—like Coffey, who wrote about her partner Joe Tasker's death on Everest in Fragile Edge (not reviewed)—it is vital to understand what drives the climber: engagement in the throes of an exciting experience, being in the presence of the divine, the fire of ambition, the chemistry of adrenaline and endorphins. Most climbers are willing to admit the pure selfishness of their enterprise; "no one was putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to do it. And we weren't doing it for the good of anyone else," says American alpinist Mark Twight. Being attracted to such an individual isn't insane, writes Coffey. They often possess an energy that is deeply engaging, but when love sinks in its hooks, the consequences can be hard. Coffey's friend told her that climbers "pursued a passion above their responsibility for and love for their family and that took precedence." It is worse still for those who had no choice, the children and parents of those who died or were gravely injured. The costs for them include a sense of abandonment for the child and "the lingering shadow grief" when the natural order of life is violated for theparent. Even so, Coffey notes of her own case, death jolts some to life. A fair summation of what impels a climber and an equally fair summation of the potentially brutal consequences.
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