Too Close to God
Page 22
And then, for just two or three moments, between wisps of sharp breeze, John heard something new and separate. It was a faint, irrelevant buzz, like the drone of a gnat. Just as suddenly it was gone, next to imaginary. The noise was an airplane, off course and sliding to its doom. Though John didn’t give it a second thought, he would remember this moment. He sniffed the air and wondered how Tink had put up with his stink for so many days. He smiled, just barely, then grabbed the rope. Up, he commanded. Up so you can go down. Up. Down. The no-exit, alpine circle game. Sisyphus never had it so good. He pulled hard.
“Fly or die, Tink.”
The salute came right back down at him. “What?”
“Fuck this whale.”
“Yeah, John. Fuck it.”
John started all over again.
Acknowledgments
There is one species who may love writing more than the writer, and that is the editor. Until actually working with one, you will never know the long, blinding hours, the sacrifices, intelligence, faith, hope, and devotion to the written word that make an editor. I’m including agents, or at least some, because in modern publishing they serve as editors, too. Not all are created equal, especially not compared to the extraordinary men and women named on this page. When I see one of my books or short stories, I see the editors who made it possible. People think of editors as pencils. In fact, they are teachers. That is everything.
My first thanks go to Dustin Lynx and Jerry Auld, the masterminds behind the Imaginary Mountain Surveyors. Writers themselves, they have created a house built on equality, respect, quality, and a rock solid belief in climbing fiction. All my life I’ve tried to imagine a book more immersive than the reading experience alone. Welcome to their expedition.
Impossibly, a circle connects here with my very first editors, Al Steck and Steve Roper, the visionaries who fathered Ascent. Neither book nor magazine, Ascent was a magic carpet that collected climbing writers from every corner, publishing every year or so when the event was deemed ready. I am not the only writer who was born in their Berkeley office. No wonder they are regarded as legends.
Other key figures include Ken Wilson, the British editor/publisher of Mountain magazine. For many years the most important gatekeeper in mountain literature, he cultivated climbs and writers alike. Climbing magazine was Fritz Stammberger’s baby. Built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but in the wilderness, not a gym, he died too soon. Post-Fritz, Climbing magazine begat two world class editors in the form of Michael Kennedy and Alison Osius. With Jeff Jackson’s arrival, you could feel the fire grow. Besides editing full time, all three were top shelf climbers and writers.
Then I came into the hands of editors who did not have mountains in their bones. They took exceptional risks with my climbing fiction because such a thing didn’t exist in New York publishing. My first agent Gwen Edelman brought me to my first editor James Landis (William Morrow,) known as one of the best ever. Another agent, Susan Golomb, gained fame for her dynamic energy and expert eye for cutting-edge mountain books. Karen Rinaldi (Crown Press) raised the bar in my career.
Last of all, my deep thanks to three believers for navigating my climbing fiction into the mainstream. Emily Bestler (with her own imprint at Atria) combines smarts, savvy and candor with a gypsy’s command of the crystal ball. Josie Freedman (International Creative Management) is my archangel in Los Angeles, one of those forces of nature who makes it all look easy. Finally, and foremost, Sloan Harris (ICM/New York) has the etiquette, integrity and instincts of a martial arts master. Without him I would be lost in that labyrinth of skyscrapers, xenophobic literati, cutthroat reviewers, and cold-eyed fates. These have been my partners in the dance.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the venues in which versions of these stories first appeared:
‘The Soloist’s Diary’ Ascent, Volume II, Number 2, 1974.
‘The Ice Climber’ Climbing, Number 35, March-April 1976.
‘In Gentle Combat with the Cold Wind’ Mountain, Issue 56, 1977.
‘The Virgins of Imst’ Climbing, Number 60, May-June 1980.
‘Cannibals’ Rocky Mountain Magazine, March-April 1981.
Chapter 1 of ‘Angels of Light’, Beach Tree Books, N.Y., 1987.
‘Revenge’ Rock and Ice, Issue 46, November-December 1991.
Prologue of ‘The Ascent’, William Morrow & Company, N.Y., 1992.
Chapter 1 of ‘The Descent’, Jove Books, N.Y., 1999.
Chapter 1 of ‘The Wall’, Simon & Schuster, Inc, N.Y., 2006.