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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010336860 | PR9199.4.R5373 A26 2012 | Open Access Book | Creative Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
It is 1924 and George Mallory is attempting to be the first to conquer Everest. He faces inhuman cold and wind, but putting one foot falteringly after another he reachs for the peak. Meanwhile, at home Ruth Mallory goes about her day, hiding her uncertainty about the future with or - god forbid - without George.
A powerful, moving story of a husband driven to extraordinary lengths by his ambition and a wife terrified she will lose him to a pitiless rival, Above All Things brings to life one of the great tragedies - and love stories - of the last century.
Author Notes
Tanis Rideout's work has appeared in numerous publications and been shortlisted for several prizes, including the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award for Emerging Writers and the CBC Literary Award. She recently received her MFA from the University of Guelph-Humber. For more information, please visit www.tanisrideout.com .
Reviews 3
Publisher's Weekly Review
This vivid, assured, and confident debut novel scales great heights of obsession and desire, both on the face of Mount Everest and in the loving bond between doomed explorer George Mallory and his wife, Ruth. Against the backdrop of Mallory's disastrous third expedition to attempt the summit in 1924, the explorer's tenacity and motives get thoughtful treatment, as he muses that if there was "nothing worth dying for, neither could there be anything worth living for," while Ruth, waiting for news and caring for their three children, is torn between understanding and resentment. For Ruth, this deep need to explore the world is what made it round rather than flat, her "desire to leave home... as strongly our desire to return." Her catalogue of George's comings and goings is a source of pain and hope and becomes all the more poignant as Rideout offers a gripping account of the expedition. The author's accomplished depiction of the harsh and beautiful Himalayan heights, the physical drain of the climb, the bitter, brutal cold and thin, grudging air pushes the reader forward in a gripping adventure narrative, while Ruth's own longings and fears offer a counterpoint of a more settled but no less intensely sensual interior landscape. The inevitable, terrible end remains in sight for the reader throughout, as compelling as the mountain peak that Mallory pursued at all costs. But Ruth's reactions, from her own sense of foreboding to her surprising fortitude in the face of deep loss, reassuringly ground the novel with the sense, as another doomed climber mused, of how "time keeps passing when we're away." Agent: Ron Eckel, Cooke Intl. (Canada). (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Because it's there. George Mallory's famous riposte to the question of why he attempts to scale Mount Everest satisfies everyone but his wife, Ruth. Theirs is a passionate romance, though one increasingly strained by Mallory's insatiable need to crest a mountain that has vanquished him twice before, leaving his reputation in tatters after seven crew members died on his previous expedition. Given yet another chance to conquer the mountain, Mallory reneges on his promise to Ruth and mounts one final expedition. While Ruth soldiers on at their Oxford home, buoyed by family and friends but unsettled by relentless anxiety, Mallory and his team endure unimaginable hardships as they set out for the top of the world. With a gripping, you are there realism, Rideout's powerful prose evokes the scalpel-like sting of arctic winds and the bone-shattering cold of frigid mountain nights. Impeccably researched, Rideout's vividly authentic debut historical novel is a paean to the ability of love to conquer all but the highest mountains.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
She's a seductress and a tease, begging to be conquered. She is Mount Everest and the man in her thrall, George Mallory, is the subject of this knockout first novel from a Canadian poet. The author has exhilaratingly imagined the British climber's third and final attempt to reach the mountain's summit in 1924 through extensive research and attention to detail, creating an atmosphere as authentic as in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. Access to years of letters exchanged between Mallory and his wife, Ruth, provide impetus for the equally compelling and only too familiar love story of a strong woman drawn to a charismatic adventurer torn between home and family and the lure of the next challenge. Why do they do it? National pride? Individual glory? Or is it some more nebulous combination of ego, guilt, and rebellion, as the author speculates? VERDICT Book group alert! Rideout has written a superb addition to the fictional biography genre popularized by novels like Loving Frank and The Paris Wife. Buy it. Recommend it. Your patrons will thank you. [See Prepub Alert 8/9/12; see also Neal Wyatt's "Tanis Rideout's "Above All Things" Read- and Watch-Alikes | Readers' Advisory Crossroads]-Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Myers, FL (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
