"If you want to get to the essence of Mallory, read Charles Lind's book, An Afterclap of Fate."

"A work of informed imagination, wonderfully plausible, Mallory's version of events at last!"

"A magnificent poem . . . wonderfully erudite . . . beautiful . . . and incredibly moving."

This is the most detailed and convincingly thought out account so far, of what happened on Mallory's last climb on Everest. The events of what actually occurred on that final summit assault in 1924, Sir Chris Bonnington has called mountaineering's greatest mystery.

Mallory himself described a climb as a spiritual journey: 'To struggle and to understand - never this last without the other'. And this is a profound recreation of that struggle, the journey to understand during the climb, set within a meticulously researched narrative. The reader is taken in the stream of Mallory's consciousness, into and through a vivid reliving of the detail of the climb itself, that leads into the heart and soul of Mallory himself. From his earliest childhood memory to moving recollections of the Somme - up to the summit of Mt. Everest - it is as much a meditation on the paths of glory and the changeling nicknamed Free Will, as about the why of climbing and its wild joy - 'the ecstasy that thrills the blood'.

It is an elegy - the Big Hill seen in the light of the country church yard at Stoke Poges - and a paean to the early days of climbing - to the great pioneers of the Golden & Silver Ages. Described as a tour de force - it is haunting and unforgettable - an epic narrative.

Price:£15.00
Format: Hardback 128 pages
Date of publication: 01/10/2006
Publisher: Ernest Press
ISBN: 9780948153846