The "gritty and riveting" story of naturalist Craig Childs's epic journey through the desert canyons of the American Southwest (The Oregonian). Are you prepared for a perilous journey into the wild?
This taut, intensely dramatic narrative immerses us in a labyrinth of canyons in the American Southwest where virtually nothing is alive — barely any vegetation, few signs of wildlife, and scant traces of any human precursors — and where we pay witness as two men confront not just immutable forces of nature but the limits of their own sanity. As a chronicle of adventure, as an emotionally charged human drama, as a confessional memoir,
The Way Out is a transcendent book, a work destined to earn a lasting place in the literature of extremes.
A breakout book from a writer increasingly celebrated as the 21st-century bard of the American Southwest -- a writer in the tradition of Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Terry Tempest Williams, among others. In March 2003, Craig Childs received the Spirit of the West Literary Achievement Award, given to a writer whose body of work captures the unique spirit of the American West. As a chronicle of adventure, as emotionally charged human drama, as confessional memoir, The Way Out is a transcendent book, a work destined to earn a lasting place in the literature of extremes. Not since John Krakauer's bestselling Into the Wild has a book so compellingly explored the boundary between wilderness adventure and madness.
