I'll Call You in Kathmandu: The Elizabeth Hawley Story [Hardcover]

Bernadette McDonald (Author), Edmund Hillary (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2005

She defied the conventions of her era: an American woman on her own in Nepal for more than four decades, celebrated as the unofficial chronicler of Himalayan expedition climbing. Based on extensive interviews with Hawley, celebrated mountaineers, and Kathmandu intimates, and full access to Hawley's meticulous records and correspondence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Climber and editor McDonald (Voices from the Summit) offers an inelegant biography of an unlovely albeit towering presence in the Nepalese mountain-climbing world who has never actually climbed. Hawley, now in her 80s, is an American whose Time Inc. writing assignments took her to Kathmandu in 1960, and she never left. From intelligence gathering for the Knickerbocker Foundation, she was drawn into the world of mountaineering just as exciting new climbs were being undertaken, such as the first American ascent of Everest in 1963, a story she broke to the West. Subsequently, Hawley met all the top climbers, and when the first tourist trekking companies began to form, she became the indispensable booker and correspondent. With years of statistics-gathering experience under her belt, she eventually ran Sir Edmund Hillary's Himalayan Trust, garnering climbing permissions for great names like Junko Tabei (the first woman to climb Everest) and blind American Erick Weihenmayer. She now holds the curious title of New Zealand's honorary consul in Nepal. In McDonald's account, Hawley's reputation as being brusque, judgmental and unapproachable precedes her, rendering this an unsympathetic portrait, and its limited point of view (McDonald's own) restricts a richer context of time and place. Photos, maps. (Sept. 22)
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Review

"I'll Call You in Kathmandu is an important and readable addition to Himalayan literature and will find a ready audience.." -- Edmonton Journal

Good stuff for you top of the world people. -- Wide World Books & Maps, Seattle, WA

I'll Call You in Kathmandu ushers the reader into a page-turning portrait of a woman ahead of her time. -- Rocky Mountain Outlook

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 253 pages
• Publisher: Mountaineers Books (September 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898868009
• ISBN-13: 978-0898868005
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #910,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent narrative, October 27, 2005

By 

Eleanor Schwartz (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I'll Call You in Kathmandu: The Elizabeth Hawley Story (Hardcover)

Bernadette McDonald called me more than a year ago to ask if she could interview me for a book she was writing, the biography of Elziabeth Hawley, whom I know from our days together at Fortune magazine. A Canadian who has studied, climbed and written extensively about mountains, Bernadette was a natural to write a book about Elizabeth, an American who has lived in Nepal since the early 1960s and who has earned international renown for her precise, 40-year documentation of climbing expeditions in the Himalayas.
While I was concerned that Bernadette might write a puff piece about Elizabeth or use her example to launch a feminist tract, I need not have worried. Her book is a realistic picture of an exceptional woman who carved an exceptional niche for herself in the exotic precincts of Kathmandu. Not only has Bernadette portrayed Elizabeth with candid accuracy, she has made her the linch-pin in providing a fast-paced and endlessly interesting chronicle of Himalayan mountaineering over the past four decades. Further, her narrative encompasses a modern history of Nepal itself, a country increasingly in the news as its archaic royal family attempts to fend off the encroachment of Maoist guerrillas.
This is indeed a worthwhile and well-written book.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Amazing Miss hawley, September 7, 2005

By 

Robert D. Torkildson "Author of ENCOUNTERS-Wi... (Bavarian Alps) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I'll Call You in Kathmandu: The Elizabeth Hawley Story (Hardcover)

Strap on your crampons, secure your harness, get a firm grip on your ice-axe, and prepare yourself for a literary Himalayan expedition. Your guide-Bernadette McDonald. The journey-To understand Miss Hawley, the chronicler and grand lady of Himalayan climbing.
I read 'I'll call you in Kathmandu' in one night, I simply could not put it down. Gripped between it's pages I felt as if I were back in Kathmandu and the Himalaya. This book is magic!!!
I truly applaud Bernadette McDonald for her tireless research, mountaineering insights, writing style, enthusiasm for the project, her uncanny ability to get to the core of the elusive Miss Hawley.
I first became aware of Miss Hawly in the early eighties while hanging out in Kathmandu, she seemed almost, 'out of place', surrounded by the local Nepalese and rag-tag foreign crowd. She was elegant and a mystery. Over the years I've wondered who this woman was, how she ended up in Kathmandu in the company of climbers and kings.
Bernadette McDonald, also a grand lady of the climbing world, has managed to bring the life of Miss Hawley and the Himalayan climbing scene to life for me, she has captured the spirit of this remarkable woman and landscape. Even those unfamiliar with climbing will be entranced by the larger then life characters, Himalaya, and the amazing Miss Hawley.
'I'll Call you in Kathmandu' comes at you like a cold mountain gust: penetrating, fresh, and able to transport you into another world. Rob Torkildson-Author of ENCOUNTERS With Remarkable People and Extreme Landscapes

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific story, well told., September 16, 2005

By 

Ann (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I'll Call You in Kathmandu: The Elizabeth Hawley Story (Hardcover)

I fully enjoyed how this story unfolded to reveal an extraordinary woman's life. The vignettes of her meetings with climbers, observations of historic events, and perspectives were fascinating. They accumulated to expose a very private, yet public, woman's passion for reporting and investigating on the world of Himalayan climbing. And then there's all the good work she did through the Himalayan Trust. This book is written in a compelling style and the extent of the research involved very impressive - the author proved herself to be quite an investigative reporter. A great read for anyone interested in Himalayan climbing, Nepal or just enjoys a terrific story about a unique woman's life.