Left for Dead

April 3, 2000
A survivor of the disastrous Mt. Everest expedition described in Jon Krakauer's bestseller Into Thin Air, Weathers is the climber many readers will remember from searing media photos of a man with heavily bandaged hands and a face so badly frostbitten it scarcely seemed human. In fact, Weathers had been abandoned by his fellow mountaineers as dead and spent some 18 hours on the mountain in subzero temperatures before miraculously regaining his senses and staggering into camp. Back in the U.S., Weathers, who is a physician, lost both hands and underwent extensive facial reconstruction. But there were other wounds to heal: he had neglected his family so much in pursuit of his hobby that his wife had decided to end the marriage once he returned. Co-written with Michaud (The Evil That Men Do; The Only Living Witness), this book deals in part with the climb but mainly with Weathers's life before and after the catastrophe. The man who wrote this book doesn't seem any less self-absorbed than the one who climbed Mt. Everest. In the years before the disaster, Weathers spent every spare moment pursuing his own interests as his wife and children became strangers to him. Now he claims to have rediscovered his family, but, unfortunately, the reader learns very little about them. Ultimately, this engrossing tale depicts the difficulty of a man's struggle to reform his life. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour.

January 1, 2000
Recovery from a coma after the Everest tragedy--and the woes that sent him there.

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2000
Weathers, a survivor of Mount Everest's death zone in the 1996 climbing fiasco, offers at least the fourth testimonial published on the subject. With nothing substantially new to add to the tale, Weathers appends to it his predisaster mountaineering obsession and his postdisaster medical recovery. The subtext to his story is his deteriorating marriage, making the author more a candidate for a Dr. Laura^-style tongue-lashing than an intrinsically interesting character in climbing. By his own account, Weathers blew off his wife and two children for years as he jetted around the world to bag the highest mountain on each continent. In full confessional mode, Weathers ascribes his hyperactivity to depression and suicidal tendencies; his wife, equally confessional, inventories her complaints about her daredevil spouse. Happily, their union is improving after the author's near-death experience, but is conducting one's marriage counseling in public apt to interest the avid aficionado of alpine adventure? For readers less stringent about quality, Weathers' unsought celebrity suffices to generate modest interest. ((Reviewed April 1, 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2000
When a blizzard trapped the author and dozens of other climbers near the summit of Mount Everest in 1996, much of the world closely followed the tragedy, in which nine died. Weathers, a Dallas-area pathologist who paid $65,000 to climb the mountain, was given up for dead only to amaze everyone, himself included, when he survived the seemingly impossible conditions. The author begins this work with the tragedy on Everest, chronicled in Jon Krakauer's best-selling Into Thin Air (LJ 4/1/97) as well as David Breashears's High Exposure (LJ 6/1/99). He then spends the majority of the book examining his reasons for pushing himself to climb tall mountains and explaining how the experience has changed him and his family. A deeply moving account of a person coming to terms with his shortcomings and his response when given a second chance, this book is highly recommended for all collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/00.]--Tim Markus, Evergreen State Coll. Lib., Olympia, WA

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.