The Mountain Story
-
-
4.2 • 40 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
Five days. Four hikers. Three survivors. From Lori Lansens, author of the national bestsellers Rush Home Road, The Girls and The Wife's Tale comes a gripping tale of adventure, sacrifice and survival in the unforgiving wilderness of a legendary mountain.
On his 18th birthday, Wolf Truly takes the tramway to the top of the mountain that looms over Palm Springs, intending to jump to his death. Instead he encounters strangers wandering in the mountain wilderness, three women who will change the course of his life. Through a series of missteps he and the women wind up stranded, in view of the city below, but without a way down. They endure five days in freezing temperatures without food or water or shelter, and somehow find the courage to carry on.
Wolf, now a grown man, has never told his son, or anyone, what happened on the mountain during those five days, but he can't put it off any longer. And in telling the story to his only child, Daniel, he at last explores the nature of the ties that bind and the sacrifices people will make for love. The mountain still has a hold on Wolf, composed of equal parts beauty and terror.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lansens (The Girls) has written a colorful, adventurous wilderness survival novel. Wilfred "Wolf" Truly decides on his 18th birthday during the late 1970s to commit suicide by leaping off the cliffs of the California batholith known as Angel's Peak. The decision comes after a series of personal setbacks, including a serious injury to his best friend Byrd Diaz, the early violent death of his mother, Glory, and the imprisonment of his ne'er-do-well father, Frankie. When the depressed Wolf rides the tram to ascend Angel's Peak, his fellow passengers are three generations of the Devine family: granddaughter Vonn, mother Bridget, and grandmother Nola. He discovers the often sick Vonn has a party-girl streak, the clairvoyant Bridget has trained for a triathlon, and the newly widowed Nola carries her husband Pip's cremated remains to sprinkle atop Angel's Peak. On their trek to reach the summit, with the November darkness falling, the ill-equipped hikers get lost. As they begin a harrowing five-day ordeal in the remote alpine outback, Wolf forgets his suicidal intentions. The realistic details, such as the traditional herbal medicine used to fight Nola's broken-bone infection and the threatening coyotes and vultures, provide the narrative's raw edge. Genre readers will also be swept along as the suspense builds in this first-rate character-driven thriller.
Customer Reviews
The Mountain Story.
This is a fabulous read, a real page turner!
The writing is superb and the story is beautifully crafted. I loved the characters and their personalities and foibles. Lori Lansens portrays so many aspects in these people. Humour intelligence, thoughtfulness. Trust, fear, stupidity.
A coming of age, love and caring.
I loved this book.