To the Last Breath: A Memoir of Going to Extremes [Hardcover]

Francis Slakey (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 8, 2012

A journey to the most extreme points on Earth and deep inside the human spirit

     Before Georgetown physics professor Francis Slakey set out to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean, he had shut himself off from other people. His lectures were mechanical; his relationships were little more than ways to fill the evenings. But as his journey veered dangerously off course, everything about him began to change.

     A gripping adventure of the body and mind, To the Last Breath depicts the quest that leads Slakey around the globe, almost takes his life, challenges his fiercely held beliefs, and opens his heart. The scientist in Slakey explores the history of Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed Antarctica expedition, the technology of climbing, and the geophysics of waves. But it is the challenges he endures and the people he encounters—a Lama who gives him a mysterious amulet, a life-or-death choice atop Everest, an ambush at gunpoint in Indonesia, a head-on collision in the high desert—that culminate in a moving lesson about what it means to be human.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2012: When Francis Slakey committed himself to climbing the highest peak on every continent and surfing every ocean, his aspirations were purely selfish: he was after both glory (nobody had done both before) and a worthy excuse to maintain the isolation he had carefully nurtured since childhood. But as he traveled the world in the often reckless pursuit of his goals, fate--a concept that, as a physicist, he completely disavowed--seemed to intervene to chip away at the walls he'd built around himself. And when he narrowly avoids a deadly ambush at an Indonesian gold mine, he's forced to question every choice he's made. The adventure pieces of To the Last Breath, are first-rate and remarkable in themselves; whether he's dangling on the face of El Capitan after catastrophic equipment failure, summiting Everest solo in a blizzard, or leaping from the roof of a building into a shallow swimming pool as a troubled teenager, Slakey's prose is taut and intense, worthy of the genre's best. But additionally, Slakey has threaded an epic adventure tale with a much more personal journey, creating a single, riveting tale of self-discovery. --Jon Foro

From Booklist

From the moment as a teen that he jumped off a four-story apartment building into a narrow, shallow swimming pool, taking calculated risks with his body became a habit for physics professor Slakey. He was always confident that through planning he could cheat death and injury from any height. Wanting to outdo all other daredevils, he decided not only to climb the highest peak on every continent but also to surf every ocean. Scarred by his mother’s early death, he resolved to form no emotional attachments that could slow this quest or, more important, break his heart again. Vowing never to marry, buy a house, or have children, he worked just to support his globetrotting. In his lively memoir, Slakey recounts how, after a series of extraordinary experiences transformed his thinking, he began to involve himself in political causes, improve his teaching, and break all his vows. For readers who like adventure and romance. --Rick Roche

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 8, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439198950
• ISBN-13: 978-1439198957
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars well-written chronicle that takes us to some of the most untraveled, dangerous sites on earth May 14, 2012

By Bookreporter

Format:Hardcover

Without knowing it, Francis Slakey was prescribing his own psychotherapy when he decided to climb the highest mountains and surf all the oceans of the world.

Slakey is one of America's most dynamic scientific personalities. He's the Upjohn Lecturer on Physics and Public Policy at Georgetown University, founder and co-director of the Program on Science and the Public Interest, a Lemelson Associate of the Smithsonian --- and the list goes on. On his website, you will learn that "Dr. Slakey became the 28th American to summit Mt. Everest in an unguided expedition that hauled 700 spent oxygen bottles and a half-ton of trash off the mountain. He is the first person in history to summit the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean. He has hitchhiked across Central Asia, lived with Masai in East Africa, scaled the granite face of El Cap, and skied in Antarctica." It is these adventures that he has written about in TO THE LAST BREATH.

The book, though, is only partly about Slakey's feats of daring on the surface of Planet Earth. Underlying these exploits is the story of Planet Francis, a cold dark planet that began to form when his mother died of a brain tumor when he was just a child. He gradually separated himself from people, from affection, from close relationships. Science didn't fail him, was always logical, and, like the newly forming Planet Francis, was icy and remote. After becoming a well-known scientific academic, Slakey decided it was time to conquer the physical world as he knew it. "The journey would unravel me, then bind me back together into someone who could feel and care."

Those who thrive on physical risk-taking will enjoy the author's descriptions of scaling El Capitan and Mt.... Everest, riding stormy waves, and experiencing the tomblike deprivation of the Antarctic vastness. The balance comes when, through these stark, invigorating adventures, Slakey begins to realize that he isn't like other people. Other people, he begins to observe, care about other people. He has to learn about that and take that risk before he can regain his humanity. This phase of inner exploration begins when he receives a mysterious amulet from the Most Holy Rimpoche in a remote monastery on his way to climb Everest.

Things start to happen, remarkable coincidences that can't be explained scientifically but that impact his life profoundly. He encounters a woman on one of his climbs who just happens to live a few blocks from his home in the US. Gina has a different view of life, a belief in destiny and the unseen hand that guides us. Breaking one of his long-held rules, Slakey learns what it's like to love someone, and lets himself get married.

In this well-written chronicle that takes us to some of the most untraveled, dangerous sites on earth, we see the disintegration of Planet Francis and the rebirth of Francis the man, husband, father and guy with a dog. He also becomes an activist, unafraid to speak out after witnessing events in Indonesia that will influence US foreign policy in the fraught months following 9-11. His example for this concern for others comes from another coincidental meeting --- with Patsy Spier, winner of the Department of Justice's Special Courage Award.

From Spier, he learns that "if someone is passionate about their cause, driven to see a just end, willing to push with every breath, then they could influence the decisions of major institutions even if all odds were against them." It was a new kind of climbing, to reach a new kind of vista. In TO THE LAST BREATH, we get the triumph of conquering Everest, of surviving harsh conditions and perilous situations in the world of nature, and of conquering one's inner nature and emerging as a caring and conscientious person.

Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott Read more ›

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful May 16, 2012

By Stella

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Stunning. Absolutely beautiful. An un-put-downable story about an amazing athlete whose personal transformation is as authentic as it is inspiring.

How much did I like this book? Enough to blow off my grad school homework to keep reading until I finished around 2 a.m. Enough to go online shortly after and buy tickets to Slakey's event tomorrow in Seattle, where I will stock up on signed copies for gifts for family and friends. Enough to delight in the prospect of rereading this book several more times.

Awesome.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Hey what happened to the Mountains? November 18, 2012

By bioboy59

Format:Hardcover

This book contains very little about mountain climbing or surfing. For example the author gives a detailed account of the intrigue involved in buying safe passage through a mine in Papua, Indonesia. But then there is nothing, and I mean nothing about the climb, to the summit and back, of what must have been one of the most biodiverse mountains in the world. And what about Denali? We are told more about the theft of his ice axe, and digging a snow trench at camp than about the experience of climbing this amazing mountain. The book is about the author's transformation from a cold heartless man to a warm caring companion worthy of a dog and a wonderful wife. He attributes this transformation to his globetrotting experiences but fails to make the case. One could just as easily suggest it is because of the differences between the testosterone levels of a 40-something compared to those of a 20-something. A large tangential section of the book is devoted to the author's suggestion that he was a pivotal figure in the Congressional investigation of the massacre of Americans in Papua, Indonesia. He clearly overstates his importance since he has no expertise in forensics or the politics of the region. The big clue that this is merely self-aggrandizement comes when the reader realizes that the author is not testifying before a Congressional Committee, but only answering the questions of some low level Staffers.

Overall, a misleading title and cover for a book of self-absorption that lacks a story and cries for an editor to say "sorry, go back and write it again."

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your money on this book July 11, 2012

By JK

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

While I certainly admire Slakey's intrepid accounts of his mountain climbing, he will remind you on every page how wonderful he is and how worthless everyone else is who is not like him. He admits he's self-absorbed and because he actually cared about someone at one point in his journey we should all recognize how wonderful this man is. He also entices the reader with an amulet he received from a Lama that guides him on his quest for the meaning of life;don't waste your time reading this drivel to find out. It's all about him.

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Not recommended June 19, 2012

By Gina

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was hopeful about this book because I love books about mountain climbing, it seemed like an interesting premise, and I'd seen this book a few times on bookstore shelves. But this is definitely one of those adventure books by someone who's not an author. The story is disjointed, at times uninteresting, and often insulting to the reader's intelligence.

Additionally, Slakey tries to do that thing that adventure writers do where they throw in interesting facts and historical bits about the sport, but to be honest, if you've ever gone for just a 2-hour hike in the mountains or watched a surf competition, you probably already know the facts he tries to "inform" you about. For example, did you know that to catch a wave the surfer has to swim as fast as the water is moving? No duh. As someone who actually climbs mountains and lived seaside long enough to attempt surfing a few times, I was actually annoyed by Slakey's writing style way more often than I enjoyed the underlying stories.

Additionally, the book comes across as self-aggrandizing at best and preachy at worst. How Slakey "stumbles upon" a cause and his shameless cheering of himself for doing something remotely unselfish is just annoying.

This book is nowhere near the caliber and quality of good adventure writers like Jon Krakauer, nor does it reflect the level of research and experience of writer-mountaineers like Ed Viesturs. Don't waste your time.