Is this it?
A Mountain Too Far: A Father's Search for Meaning in the Climbing
Death of His Son
by Karl H. Purnell
From Publishers Weekly:
Any parent will find it hard to read former newspaper reporter
Purnell's detailed account of a two-year quest to understand his
28-year-old son Chris's sudden death. Chris, an obsessive climber,
died in Canada in an ice-climbing accident. At first racked by anger,
Purnell becomes "obsessed with finding out just who Chris was, to know
his secrets and why he chose to climb." Developing his own climbing
skills, the 65-year-old author visits some of his son's favorite
regions, climbing in Yosemite, the French Alps and then finally the
Himalayas, where, twice trying to scale mountains that Chris also
attempted to climb, he achieves a sort of closure. The first part of
Purnell's narrative is somewhat stiff, as he apparently tries to
separate the story from his clearly overwhelming emotions. However, in
the second half, Purnell includes Chris's own journal entries about
life and climbing. As he begins to understand Chris's life of "fervor
and commitment," Purnell gains some painful insight: that serious
climbers usually have "a childhood filled with family trauma" in
Chris's case, his parents' acrimonious divorce and that perhaps he is
"wrong in refusing to accept Chris's absence." Purnell ultimately
decides that perhaps his "need to climb a mountain to know [his] son
was misplaced," but he achieves something else: he pays tribute to
Chris's energy and to the pain that a child's death can cause a
parent, without descending into maudlin bathos. (Apr.)Forecast: Any
parent grieving the loss of a child might be drawn to this
clear-minded, loving and unsentimental book. Additionally, given the
current popularity of (often dangerous) outdoor sports, Purnell's
attempts to make sense of their psychological meaning could help
generate word of mouth. |
