Fragile Edge

Rating:
Summary: THE LONG GOODBYE...
Review: What happens to the loved ones of mountaineers who perish while seeking to climb higher peaks or pioneer new routes on challenging mountains? The author attempts to answer this question with her well written and deeply personal account.

The author was intimately involved in the mountaineering world of the nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties. At the time she was in the throes of an intense love affair with Joe Trasker, the British climber who perished in 1982 with his regular climbing partner, Peter Boardman, while attempting to climb the then unclimbed Northeast ridge of Everest.

The author offers an intriguing, birdseye view into the tight circle of the mountaineering elite through her relationship with Joe Trasker. The book, however, is not about climbing, per se. It is more of a personal catharsis of her relationship with Joe Trasker.

Still, this makes for an interesting read. The book is divided into two parts. The first concerns itself with the Joe that was living. The second part concerns itself with the Joe that had perished.

The first part chronicles their relationship, which was intense. It also seemed to be a little one sided. The author makes it fairly clear to the reader that Joe Trasker did not seem to have the same commitment to the relationship that the author seems to have had. Her reluctance to let the relationship go appears to have been based more upon what the relationship could have been, rather than upon what it actually was. As they say, love is blind.

The second part of the book chronicles her coming to terms with his death. She does this by joining up with Peter Boardman's widow, Hilary, and setting off on a journey to Tibet and, ultimately, to Everest in an attempt to connect to Joe one final time, as well as to seek closure to a part of her life that was no more.

Sensitively written and finely drawn, her pain is palpable and her story moving. It is, above all, a fitting tribute to Joe Trasker, the man who inspired such devotion.