Rating: 
Summary: A beautiful glimmer of a man's interesting life
Review: After just finishing the book I found myself wanting to write the author and thank him for letting the reader into another world, a very personal one, of a man who had experienced so much in the ways of life, love, and death. The book flows with it's constant references to Guy Waterman's own writings as well as great literary works. I felt a part of the waterman clan ,without intruding, after reading the book. It has been a long time since a book made anything so real with out being too heavy handed. The adventures are amazing, both in the outdoors and with the human emotions. A fantastically orchestrated work; Chip Brown has proved himself as an outdoorsman and writer.
Rating:
Summary: Ten star must read book!
Review: After reading Brad Wieners excellent review on SLATE I knew I had to buy and read this book and I am so glad I did. Have even ordered a copy from Amazon. What a wonderful book and for more than a few reasons. The reason I was drawn to the book was because we are much like the subject of the book. Homesteaders and one of us suffers from clinical depression. And the subject of suicide fascinates me because living in such a self proclaiming "Christian nation" the idea of choosing to actually die goes contrary to all that we have been taught. The book also is excellent because it shows that no matter what the visionaries public persona or how they may come across in their writings, there are often deep secrets that the majority will not or may not want to see. Although I also think (know) that many people who live in the most northern states where winters can be grey and dark, and where summers begin and seem to leave as fast as summers arrive, can suffer more from SAD Seasonal Affective Disorder. But Guy Waterman had other demons like alcohol that he may have stopped using but which had done their dirty dead. But its the whole dying is a personal choice sub-topic that is of great value and if nothing else the way the subject is interwoven so skillfully by author Chip Brown into the psychology and life lived of Guy Waterman makes this a book you cannot put down. And if its not to arrogant or uncivil to say so, I think that dying on ones own terms in ones own chosen and loved environment may be more of a celebration of life lived than some are willing to admit. How often I have heard from childhood that no matter what die doing what you love or in a place you love in ways most people can never understand. A very provacative and thoughtful book worth owning.
Rating:
Summary: A memoir of great proportions
Review: As a resident of Fairbanks, Alaska, I am familiar with Johnny Waterman's legend. By exploring the lives of Guy Waterman and his family, this book provides a very insightful analysis of the family's history and relationships. The book shows a keen understanding of the psychology of mountaineers and those who love the frontier and outdoors. It examines the connection of life and death, the connection of hope with despair and the internal conflicts of one man that eventually led to his taking his own life. What is special about Mr. Brown's biography of Guy Waterman, is that he refuses to paint a picture of pathology. Instead he describes Mr. Waterman as unique and grand in all his eccentricities and human frailties. Here is a man who is connected to wilderness in a spiritual way yet remains existentially alone and unable to connect with his own children in an enduring way. This book is a page-turner, a psychological and philosophical thriller that had me mesmerized from beginning to end. I found Mr. Brown's grasp of Alaskan wilderness accurate. He knows Denali and the Ruth Glacier in a personal way. He respects the power of wilderness without impressing his ego on it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves memoirs, wilderness and psychological mystery.
Rating:
Summary: A memoir of great proportions
Review: As a resident of Fairbanks, Alaska, I am familiar with Johnny Waterman's legend. By exploring the lives of Guy Waterman and his family, this book provides a very insightful analysis of the family's history and relationships. The book shows a keen understanding of the psychology of mountaineers and those who love the frontier and outdoors. It examines the connection of life and death, the connection of hope with despair and the internal conflicts of one man that eventually led to his taking his own life. What is special about Mr. Brown's biography of Guy Waterman, is that he refuses to paint a picture of pathology. Instead he describes Mr. Waterman as unique and grand in all his eccentricities and human frailties. Here is a man who is connected to wilderness in a spiritual way yet remains existentially alone and unable to connect with his own children in an enduring way. This book is a page-turner, a psychological and philosophical thriller that had me mesmerized from beginning to end. I found Mr. Brown's grasp of Alaskan wilderness accurate. He knows Denali and the Ruth Glacier in a personal way. He respects the power of wilderness without impressing his ego on it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves memoirs, wilderness and psychological mystery.
Rating: 
Summary: The Motivational Status Of A Suicide
Review: Chip Brown is an exceptionally gifted writer. His prose is fluid, inventive, full of literary allusion and smart. In Good Morning Midnight he has turned his attention to the planned suicide of Guy Waterman, a famous mountaineer and outdoorsman, who froze himself to death one desperately frigid night in February 2000 atop a mountain in the New Hampshire wilderness. Although the book is biographical in the sense that it explores Waterman's life in toto, the central preoccupation is most definitely the motivational matrix of the choice to die made by a sixty-seven year-old man who was in relatively good health for his age and who enjoyed a rich life well worth continuing with in the eyes of those who knew and loved him. Why does a person make the choice of death? Is it a legitimate choice? What life circumstances eventuate in such a choice? How does the choice affect surviving family and friends? These are the questions Brown relentlessly wrestles with throughout his study. Along with the question of whether medical/psychiatric intervention would have made a difference in the final outcome. As a biography of a unique, multi-talented man Good Morning Midnight held my interest until the last page. I particularly liked Brown's attention to Waterman's two eldest sons who died (killed themselves?) in the Alaskan wilderness both before they were thirty years of age. The chapter devoted to middle son John Waterman, a famous climber in his own right, was absolutely riveting and marked the high point of the book in this reader's opinion. Brown posits that for Guy Waterman it was the loss of two of his three boys, and the remorse he felt about his role in their untimely demise, that ultimately drove him to consider his life not worth living. But there is so much speculation and hand wringing about motivation that after a while it became a chore to follow along with this layer of the text. I especially found Brown's concern with whether or not Waterman was clinically depressed and in need of treatment tiresome. Just because it is possible to 'treat' does not mean that we all must choose to be cured. Not everyone desires the intrusion of medical attention under all circumstances just because it is available. And not every bit of every individual's life need necessarily be understood down to every minute fragment of the psyche's intricate web of meaning and motivation. As Waterman's wife Laura wrote after the death of her husband, "Why rend the veil?" Amen! The idea that we must all live to the very last possible moment of our lives regardless of the quality of those lives is an overbearing injunction that has led to many of the problems of modern society, not the least of which is the all too pervasive, frequently gruesome hospitalization of death. Waterman led a full life and his death was thematically consonant with the overarching trajectory of that life. Although he made mistakes that came to haunt him in his later years, his choice to die at the moment he was ready to go seems a courageous act that might well be respected on its own terms rather than dissected ad nauseum by those without the fortitude to recognize that we are each and every one of us heading for the same destination and that it is the act of taking responsibility for our final station in life that quintessentially defines who we are and what we are in fact really made of. Whatever his shortcomings, Guy Waterman was made of the stuff of legend. May he rest in peace.
Rating: 
Summary: Total disappointment
Review: Chip Brown's biography of Guy Waterman is a depressing read. It is also a fascinating, well written biography. Overall, I agree with the review posted here by Lawrence Hauser, which is excellent. In particular, I concur with Hauser's praise of the chapter on Waterman's son John.
What most captivated me about Guy Waterman's story was his refusal to seek help, his belief that somehow his life was uniquely different. He seemed to live with all kinds of denial, including his alcoholism, even though he did manage to stop drinking. His ultimate denial had to do with his reason's for killing himself -- the argument that impending old age would be unbearable. 67 and in perfectly good health? Of course, the only health Waterman had was physical. His deep depression and inability to communicate emotionally with his wife suggest a gravely ill man. But Waterman, an otherwise very intelligent person, refused to seek help. As Brown tells it, Waterman's life was truly tragic.
Rating:
Summary: Deadly Silence?
Review: Chip Brown's biography of Guy Waterman is a depressing read. It is also a fascinating, well written biography. Overall, I agree with the review posted here by Lawrence Hauser, which is excellent. In particular, I concur with Hauser's praise of the chapter on Waterman's son John.
What most captivated me about Guy Waterman's story was his refusal to seek help, his belief that somehow his life was uniquely different. He seemed to live with all kinds of denial, including his alcoholism, even though he did manage to stop drinking. His ultimate denial had to do with his reason's for killing himself -- the argument that impending old age would be unbearable. 67 and in perfectly good health? Of course, the only health Waterman had was physical. His deep depression and inability to communicate emotionally with his wife suggest a gravely ill man. But Waterman, an otherwise very intelligent person, refused to seek help. As Brown tells it, Waterman's life was truly tragic.
Rating:
Summary: Total disappointment
Review: I can only hope that Guy Waterman's final freezing hours atop Mt. Lafayette were less painful than trying to get through this book. If there's a good story in here somewhere, it will take a search and rescue party to find it among Mr. Brown's endless rambling and superflous language. Here's an example, lifted randomly from the third chapter: "Although the Farm was only eight miles from downtown New Haven, where Professor Waterman taught physics at Yale, it seemed a world apart, a kind of Connecticut Shangri-la exempt from the privations of the Great Depression and far from the portents of the Second World War, and impossible, really, to separate from the enchantment of childhood itself, part place, part time, part the memory of that theater of spirits where Mother is forever calling you home from the woods with a silver whistle and Father is ushering you to bed with a lullaby on the grand piano." Despite his impressive credentials, Brown writes like a novice who is more concerned with constructing elaborate sentences and displaying vocabulary than capturing the reader's interest and telling the subject's story. Shame on this book's editor for not hacking it to shreds.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful statement
Review: I could nitpick the psychological approach of the author...but really he does a great service to Guy Waterman's legacy. This is a powerful story ....that truly unearths existential questions for us all...about why we choose to live on the earth.....There are great morsels....beyond the more despairing parts...about how Guy and his wife Laura built their homestead ...which is inspiring....The stories about the premature deaths of his sons..are also depicted well, with grace and ..some adventure. I was touched by this story......This is a great book. I recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful statement
Review: I could nitpick the psychological approach of the author...but really he does a great service to Guy Waterman's legacy. This is a powerful story ....that truly unearths existential questions for us all...about why we choose to live on the earth.....There are great morsels....beyond the more despairing parts...about how Guy and his wife Laura built their homestead ...which is inspiring....The stories about the premature deaths of his sons..are also depicted well, with grace and ..some adventure. I was touched by this story......This is a great book. I recommend it highly.
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