The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 2 March 1998
by Jon Krakauer
In April of 1992, a 24-year-old youth walked into the wilds near Denali National Park. Four months later, his emaciated corpse was found in an abandoned bus 25 miles from the town of Healy, Alaska. When this reader first read about it in the SF Chronicle, as republished from an article in Outside magazine, he was deeply haunted by the story. However, many people find Chris McCandless's adventure to be illustrative of extreme naivité or outright stupidity. In this compelling book, the author describes the last two years of McCandless's life. He defends him against his detractors and sets the record straight on some factual errors in the Outside article. He also greatly expands on the experience of people who came into contact with McCandless before his fatal adventure. Chris abandoned his family, donated his savings of $24,000 to OXFAM America, and wandered the country as a vagabond. His intellectual quest was indicative of his youth and earnestness. His death was caused by naivité and arrogance in the face of the "wilderness", but he survived 112 days alone with very few supplies, and would be alive today but for only one or two critical errors. Krakauer illustrates the story with tales of other lost adventurers, as well as his own risky climbs in Alaska. Though he digresses for two chapters to tell his own story, Krakauer suddenly and convincingly makes his point. It is a well-written and tragically familiar tale. (The book is good, and so is the movie of the same name.)