Over the Edge : The True Story of Four American Climbers' Kidnap and Escape in the Mountainsof Central Asia

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Summary: Over the Edge
Review: This is an interesting work of journalism. Greg Child, a well-known climbing writer, is branching out and expanding his skills here. Overall, I'd say he does well. Climbers may want to be advised that this is *not* a climbing book; there's very little description of climbing and what there is has been written so as to fit a broader audience.

Child does three things here. First, he discusses the history and nature of Islamic terrorism in Central Asia. I'd think this element would have appeal to anyone interested in current events. Although some of the informational segments are dry, it's terrifying to realize the extent of, and the numbers of people involved in, violently fanatical beliefs. And it's tragic to think that some of the most beautiful wilderness landscapes on the planet are tainted by human brutality. The 9/11 tie-in here is obvious, since the group which kidnapped the climbers was tied to the Taliban.

Secondly, Child tells the story of the climbers, four young Americans who were taken as hostages. (We also get, briefly, the story of some European captives at the same period). And that's a slightly depressing view of human nature. While it's unclear how much warning the climbers had about the dangerous nature of the country they were visiting, it's obvious that they took a risk. There's something repugnant about these privileged Americans showing up in this extremely impoverished society with their CD walkmans, minidisc players, thousands of dollars of camera equipment (though the latter, granted, does professionally relate to their work for The North Face), and other electronic gadgets.

When they were captured, it appears that the undoubted courage it takes to climb hard routes didn't exactly translate. One can relate to their fear and helplessness.

Lastly, Child discusses the ugly attacks by other climbers and journalists, including Americans, on the hostages' story. Various details, even the story as a whole, were challenged by people who had never been to Kyrgyztan or interviewed any of the participants themselves. In my view, the physical and psychological condition of the four, upon their return, gives their story credence, as do the circumstances under which their gear was visibly abandoned. It also seems to me that Child is a trustworthy journalist. And perhaps most of all, if someone was going to make up a story about a heroic escape from terrorists, they'd make up something... heroic. Pushing a man off a cliff and running, though a sensible response to an extreme situation, isn't really a heroic act. Readers must choose for themselves, of course, whom they believe.

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Summary: MORE IS SOMETIMES LESS...
Review: This is the true story of four young Americans, three men and one woman, who in August of 2000 ventured into Kyrgyzstan in order to rock climb in the Pamir-Alai mountain range. On August 11, 2000, while climbing, they would suddenly find themselves the target of sniper fire. After their descent, they would find themselves taken at gunpoint and held hostage by young Islamic fundamentalists of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They would join a Kyrgyz soldier whom the militants had already taken prisoner.

The next six days would prove to be harrowing ones for these climbers, who would be marched thrugh the rugged terrain of the mountains with little food and water and constant threat of execution at the hands of their heavily armed captors. They would eventually see the their fellow captive, the Kyrgyz soldier with whom they had bonded, executed. With nothing to lose, they would be forced to make a life or death decision that was to cause them much angst but would allow for an escape.

This audio book is well narrated by Armand Schultz who does an excellent job of infusing with atmosphere the author's somewhat dry chronicle of these startling pre-9/11 events that, looking back in hindsight, now seem to have a much more evil and sinister portent. The story is multifaceted in that it grounds what happened to these climbers in a global context, giving the historical backdrop and political dynamics of the area.

The author fully lays out the media circus that enveloped the climbers upon their return to the United States. He also found himself becoming part of the story, as exclusivity and certain monetary arrangements he had made with the climbers threatened to dominate the story and cast a pall over the veracity of all. The author also lays out the secret pact that the climbers had made over the agonizing decision one of them had reached in order to effect their escape. It was a decision that they believed had led to the death of the captor who had been entrusted with keeping them captive.

The media circus around what had happened to them turned decidedly ugly when it was discovered that this captor was still alive and under arrest. What he had to say would then throw the media into a further tailspin. Thanks to the power of television, however, a Dateline NBC interview with the captor at the heart of the storm of the controversy would finally put to rest some of the unsavory portions of this true life adventure.

What really stands out is the naivete and ignorance of the climbers about the part of the world in which they were traveling. Notwithstanding the fact that none of them seemed to be particularly bright, they had done very little in terms of research into the area before traveling there nor had they heeded State Department advisories about the area. The climbers, in large part, remain somewhat of an enigma and, as such, the reader finds oneself caring very little about them.

This news saga originally appeared as a gripping article in "Outside" magazine. I had the good fortune to have read it and was transfixed by what had happened. I do not recall who wrote the article, though it was most likely Greg Child. In writing this book, however, he seems to have sucked the life out of the story. While still worth reading, it is an adventure story uitterly devoid of passion.

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Summary: Into Thin Air, with guns...
Review: Very satisfying and intense read.

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Summary: Climbs and Misdemeanors
Review: © 2002 The Washington Post Company. Though "Over the Edge" is billed as a harrowing tale of adventure and danger in the mysterious high-altitude hinterlands of Central Asia, its exotic locales and riveting action are overshadowed by a bizarre last act that is unmistakably American. The subtitle provides an adequate summary of the bulk of the book's contents but omits any mention of the struggle for control of the story itself, or the unorthodox pecuniary relationship between the author and his subjects. Greg Child, a contributor to Outside magazine and a big-wall climbing enthusiast himself, becomes a major player in the back story that emerges in the wake of the action. More on this later.
Big-wall climbing is an extreme sport, expensive and dangerous to undertake, and requires a power-to-weight ratio that few athletes can muster. A big wall is just that -- a sheer face that defies mortal attempts to scale it. An example is a route up Smith Rocks in Oregon, described by Child as having "no hold larger than the width of a pencil in its 120-foot length." There are very few places in the world to attempt such perilous ascents. High up on this short list is the region known to climbers as the Karavshin, comprising several mountain ranges on the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan border.
In August 2000, four young Americans were taken prisoner by Islamic militants while climbing in Kyrgyzstan's Pamir Alai mountains. For six grueling days, tired and half starved, they were marched at gunpoint through dangerous terrain. With death looming, one took advantage of an unguarded moment to topple one captor off a cliff, presumably to his death.
Let's stipulate that the blow-by-blow account of the kidnapping, and even much of the establishing material on the climbers' personalities, the sport of big-wall climbing and Islamic militancy in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia is compelling and well written. What's more interesting is what happened when the climbers came home to the United States and their story quickly morphed into a media event.
For a while, when facing the media, the climbers stuck to their original story that they had collaborated in their escape. When it emerged that it was just one man who impulsively did the pushing, their credibility began to diminish. The controversy heated up when it turned out that their captor was still alive -- and talking to competing reporters. But the climbers refused to discuss these revelations with journalists because they had promised Child and his publisher an exclusive on the story. In return, Child agreed to share money from his book and movie deals with the climbers. This is called "checkbook journalism." Child is being kind to himself when he characterizes the arrangement as a mere "embargo" and "a simple matter of business common in publishing." Even now, attempts are being made to outlaw the practice in Britain.
In one respect, it's hard to reproach Child for his actions: It would be unfair if the victims in this affair went begging while a reporter cashed in on the story. But Child is trying to have it both ways. He attempts to discredit the work of others who, deprived of access to the principals, investigate independently whether their story is true.
One reporter, John Bouchard of Climbing magazine, visited Kyrgyzstan on his own to work on the story. Child's narrative follows Bouchard's trip, relying to a great extent on the account of Garth Willis, an American living in Bishkek. Willis told Child that Bouchard told him that this story was "his big chance to make it as a writer." If ambition is the seed of bad conscience, as Child seems here to insinuate, then his own motives are just as shaky as Bouchard's.
For Child, too, this story signifies the chance to make it as a writer. It means leaving the ghetto of specialty magazines and book publishers and graduating to the mainstream, where advances are measured in six and seven figures. The adventure-book category is capable of generating enormous sales and minting name-brand authors in the process. Child's admission of "respect" for rival reporter Bouchard's "conviction" is a debater's trick, allowing him to appear as though he is questioning his own motives and conscience while still characterizing Bouchard as a monomaniacal hack.
This little tempest is all the more unfortunate because Child's account is well researched, vivid and more than plausible -- it is very probably the truth. I do not doubt that Child's rivals resent his access to the climbers, and it may be that their pique with the story stems in part from that resentment. But if Child believes this to be true, why not put the question to Bouchard -- or at least double-check quotes that he attributes to Bouchard? Instead he brags about never having made the attempt. It is a shame that a journalistic rivalry and the promise of a big payday threaten to diminish not only the author's credibility but also the suffering of his subjects. If Child had wished to keep his story honest, he would have refused to pay his subjects, or he would have revealed how much money he received and how it was divided, then left it to the reader to decide if his account is corrupted by the sum. As it stands, Child is either arrogant or naive to expect us to take him at his word.