Deborah A Wilderness Narrative

A mountaineering expedition undertaken by the author and his best friend to the eastern side of Mount Deborah in Alaska in 1964.

Describes the tragedies, frustrations, and triumphs of two mountain climbing expeditions in Alaska.

Deborah Lee Luskin's critically acclaimed love story, Into the Wilderness, follows Rose Mayer after she has just buried her second husband and wonders what she's going to do with the rest of her life. The year is 1964, and Rose is no longer a young woman. Reluctantly, she visits her son at his summer place in Vermont, where there are neither sidewalks, Democrats nor other Jews. There is, however, the Marlboro Music Festival. It's there that she meets Percy Mendell, a born and bred Vermonter who has never married, never voted for a Democrat, and never left the state.Both Rose and Percy confront habits of a lifetime, habits that interfere with their undeniable attraction to one another. Rose confronts her religious ignorance and spiritual beliefs, while Percy is forced to question his life-long political faith. All this takes place in the small Vermont town of Orton, (pop. 290). Into the Wilderness is a tale of the outsider infiltrating a new community and how all parties negotiate their differences. It's also a tale of rural Vermont at mid-century, a time when the major technological advance was the Interstate highway, a road-building project that changed rural America as much as the information highway is changing the world today.Readers routinely say, "I didn't want it to end but I couldn't put it down." Into The Wilderness has been hailed as "a fiercely intelligent love story" and "a perfectly gratifying read.""Into the Wilderness is a poignant description of a specific placebut it is also a timeless story of human fulfillment," says Frank Bryan of UVM. "Luskin's heroine Rose Mayer is an honest to God miracle. Rarely has a fictional creation come to seem so perfectly real to me, and never have I cheered out loud as a character in a novel worked her way through the last stages of grief," adds author Philip Baruth.Deborah Lee Luskin often writes about Vermont, where she has lived since 1984. She is a commentator for Vermont Public Radio, a free-lance journalist, and a Visiting Scholar for the Vermont Humanities. Into The Wilderness is her first published novel.

CLICK HERE to download the first chapter from The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah * Two classic mountaineering adventures, in one beautiful volume! * Part of The Mountaineers Books "Legends and Lore" series for climbers, armchair mountaineers, and readers of classic adventure literature The publication of The Mountain of My Fear in 1968 and Deborah in 1970 changed the face of the mountaineering narrative. Now these two classic expedition narratives by acclaimed writer David Roberts are together again in one volume for a new generation of readers. Deborah is the story of Roberts's 1964 expedition with fellow Harvard Mountaineering Club member Don Jensen to the eastern side of Mount Deborah in Alaska. Their two-man attempt on the then-unclimbed ridge was a rash and heroic effort. The story tells not only what happened on the mountain, but what happened in the stark isolation to the climbers and their friendship, as each became totally dependent on the other for survival. In The Mountain of My Fear Roberts and Jensen come together again only a year after the Deborah climb. In this account, they and two other Harvard students attempt an ascent of Mount Huntington, for the first time via its treacherous west face. The summit had been reached only the year before, via one of its less dangerous ridges. The story is one of a magnificent achievement. But it is also the story of how a perfect adventure can turn into tragedy in a single instant. Mountaineers, lovers of adventure literature, David Roberts fans, and non-climbers who simply enjoy a good story will value this pairing, by a great climber and a great writer, of two dramatic and enlightening works. This title is part of our LEGENDS AND LORE series. Click here > to learn more.

Account of first ascent of west face of Mt. Huntington, Alaska, in 1965.

Guy and Laura Waterman spent a lifetime reflecting on and writing about the mountains of the Northeast. The Waterman Fund seeks to further their legacy of stewardship through an annual essay contest that celebrates and explores issues of wilderness, wildness, and humanity. Since 2008, the Waterman Fund has partnered with the journal Appalachia in seeking out new and emerging voices on these subjects, and in publishing the winning essay in the journal. Part of the contest's mission is to find and support such emerging writers, and a number of them have gone on to publish other work in Appalachia or their own books. The contest has succeeded admirably in fulfilling its mission: new writers have brought fresh perspectives to these timeless issues of wilderness and wildness. In New Wilderness Voices these winning essays are collected for the first time, along with the best runners-up. Together, they make up an important and celebratory addition to the growing body of environmental literature, and shed new light on our wild spaces.

1. DESIRING NATURES -- 2. CONQUERING NATURES -- 3. SPIRITUAL NATURES -- 4. EROTIC NATURES -- 5. RISKY NATURES -- 6. RESTORATIVE NATURES -- Appendix : List of Contemporary American Adrenaline Narratives.