The Way Out: A True Story of Survival [Hardcover]

Craig Childs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 2005

Craig Childs is lost. In a labyrinth of canyons in the American Southwest where virtually nothing else is alive - barely any vegetation, few signs of wildlife, scant trace of any human precursors in this landscape - Childs and his friend Dirk undertake a fortnight's journey. With as much food and gear as they can carry, and little else but their wiles to help them traverse the inhospitable, unmappable terrain, the two men assume the life-or-death challenge of exploring this land - and then finding a way out. Equally gripping as their adventure in the wild is the parallel story, told in flashback, of what has propelled the two men into these extreme circumstances. In scenes that crackle with tension and suspense - recollections of barroom brawls, high-speed car chases and reckless feats of risk-taking - we discover the surprising legacy of violence that each man is escaping. As a chronicle of adventure, as emotionally-charged human drama, as confessional memoir, THE WAY OUT is a transcendent book, a work destined to earn a lasting place in the literature of extremes.

Editorial Reviews

Review

For THE SECRET KNOWLEDGE OF WATER and SOUL OF NOWHERE: 'Utterly memorable and fantastic... certainly no reader will ever see the desert in the same way again' - Washington Post 'Childs's own feats of asceticism are nothing if not awe- inspiring: he's a modern-day desert father' - New York Times Book Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Craig Childs is a naturalist, adventurer, desert ecologist and frequent contributor to a US national radio morning programme.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (January 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316610666
• ISBN-13: 978-0316610667
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,211,559 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life In The Stone, March 20, 2005

By 

Seachranaiche (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Way Out: A True Story of Survival (Hardcover)

Craig Childs explores and describes the canyon country of the Colorado Plateau like no one else can. In "The Way Out", Childs and a friend navigate through a maze of canyons incised deeply into the Navajo Sandstone of northern Arizona. This could be just another wilderness adventure, a book to sit beside the countless other wilderness essays on bookstore shelves, but it is not: I have seen the land Craig Childs navigates in this book, a land of twisted canyons so disturbingly chaotic that I feel tremors in my solar plexus whenever I see it, and I have never had the courage to try to cross it.

As they struggle through the twisted canyons, Childs flashes back to his turbulent relationship with his father, and he describes his friend's long and torturous career as a police officer. At first I found these flashbacks to be too personal and intimate; I was almost embarrassed for Childs' inability to keep these deeply personal thoughts to himself. As their adventure progresses, though, these past experiences come alive in the stone, creating a web of life and continuum whose lessons are seen at every turn. In his final act, Childs takes his father's ashes into the desert where he intends to release them in the only place where he can find peace. A storm blows up though, and his father's ashes are taken by the wind and the crash of lightening. This seems to prove to him that his struggles through nature are the same as his struggles with his father: enigmatic; tempestuous; dichotomous.

"The Way Out" is a powerful story of emotion and survival in the wilderness of the land and of the mind.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Take stock of what has happened along your own walk!, March 23, 2006

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Way Out: A True Story of Survival (Hardcover)

Where most people go to resorts or on a cruise for time away from their everyday lives, Craig Childs and his close friend and traveling companion Dirk Vaughn walk the desolate deserts, canyons and chasms of the American West.

The Way Out describes Childs' walk through a forgotten and imposing fracture in the crust of the earth rarely if ever seen by white people. The indigenous tribes through millennia have passed this way, but until Childs and Vaughn receive permission from an elder Dine shepherd, no one has walked this route in recent times.

Childs' style of writing is metaphorical. It engages you and makes one understand the element he is traveling like no other author I have read. It flows like prose from the early days of the last century when authors painted their stories with words.

In the short period of time that the two men spend in their search through this chasm, they reflect on the lives they have led that have brought them to this adventure. Childs' life is one of dark memories that would have pushed those without his outlook upon life to the depths of depression. In his compatriot Vaughn, we meet a man that has seen the distasteful underbelly of big city crime in his days as a police officer.

Yet neither man allows those past experiences to dampen their spirit in their quest to explore the forgotten realm in which they have intentionally placed themselves.

I must admit, I almost put this book down. But as I forged forward I began to understand the author's style and what he was trying to communicate.

Armchair Interviews says: The Way Out will make you take solitary stock of what has happened along your own walk through life.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem. Childs delivers another masterpiece., September 3, 2005

By 

James E. Schwartzman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Way Out: A True Story of Survival (Hardcover)

I loved this book, which is a feast for the soul. The novel profiles an inner and outer journey of two men through the most intense environment. Beyond the physical endurance required to pass this route, the 2 men reflect on their past struggles with society, family and personal demons.

It's another incredible book by Childs, and I think marks a change in his writing style. Rather than a collection of journeys, this is a single story which becomes a legend or tale.

Read this book. It reaches into the soul of men, in a way few contemporary stories can.