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Book Reviewed by:"Tell me the story of Everest," she said, a fervent smile sweeping across her face, creasing the corners of her eyes. "Tell me about this mountain that's stealing you away from me."
In 1924 George Mallory departs on his third expedition to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Left behind in Cambridge, George's young wife, Ruth, along with the rest of a war-ravaged England, anticipates news they hope will reclaim some of the empire's faded glory. Through alternating narratives, what emerges is a beautifully rendered story of love torn apart by obsession and the need for redemption.
Many authors never surpass the masterwork with which they started their careers. If Tanis Rideout writes no other novel, she has achieved mastery in this first long work and has given us a treasure. I personally hope she will continue to write so skillfully of the inner human struggle. Some would call this a historical novel, but it is more than that: it is an exploration of the conflict of the human heart, which all must face and within which we each must shape our destiny...continued
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(Reviewed by Bob Sauerbrey).
Tanis Rideout's Above All Things is part of an important tradition in human history and literature. The deaths of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine continue the fascination we have with glorious failures and heroic misadventures.
The Iliad's Hector
The Iliad, one of the first works of Western Literature, celebrates the death of Hector, a man of integrity and clearly superior to those who defeat him and his people. Hector shows a mercy and compassion lacking in the Greek leaders, Agamemnon and Menelaus, and even in the tortured hero who kills him, Achilles. In their last meeting in book 6 of The Iliad, Hector and his wife Andromache, both realizing in their deepest hearts that Hector will die in the coming battle, speak of the ...
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When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which ...
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David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of Z
'Because it's there.' With just three words, George Mallory explained why explorers do what they do. Yet beyond these words, volumes have been left unsaid. With Above All Things, Tanis Rideout finally fills in this void, illuminating one of the great tragic adventure stories of the modern-day age. It's a fantastic read.
