On the contrary, Krakauer has managed to write one hell of a cliffhanger about last summer's ill-fated season on Everest, the mountain that killed nine people in less than 300 pages. Anecdotal reports suggest that readers simply can't put the book down, even after they've reached the climax. Fortunately there's been a high rate of success in talking them down . More compelling than the tragedy, though, has been the avalanche of finger-pointing that has accrued since the whole misadventure went down. Krakauer is the golden calf who has been by turns vilified and canonized, a phenomenon he set in motion himself by insisting on assigning blame even as he repeats ad nauseam his own mea culpas.
Mountains kill stupid people.
But what really abrades his gaitors is that the mountain spares some who are certifiable cretins. It isn't really Krakauer's fault that a bunch of folks bought the farm at the top of the world, and he happened to be there to see it. And if he feels badly about it, we're relatively certain that his stinging conscience is rapidly acclimatizing in the rich atmosphere at the top of The New York Times bestseller list. Now that Eiger Dreams is back in print, along with Into The Wild, he's on a lecture circuit that makes the Exodus look like a walk around the block. Krakauer's stock is undoubtedly the highest point on the planet.