A LIGHT THROUGH THE CRACKS

A celebrated rock climber retraces the most dangerous trek of her career.

In her candid memoir, Rodden vividly recalls a harrowing monthlong hostage situation in Kyrgyzstan in 2000, when she was just 20. The author effectively interweaves the details of the kidnapping into her descriptions of her early life and the post-ordeal aftermath years. A professional at 18, Rodden writes proudly of embracing her youthful obsession with climbing, chronicling her vigorous training and achievement of accolades for her ever-challenging rock climbing exploits. Early in her career, she attracted the attention of pioneer climbers who introduced her to more demanding free-climbing routes. Filled with heavily detailed anecdotes and “climber code” discussions about the more treacherous climbs Rodden has performed, the narrative momentum stems from the author’s graphic, riveting depiction of the climbing trip to Kyrgyzstan. Hastily assembled with her then-boyfriend, Tommy, and two others, the adventure, which began as a brisk ascent, soon devolved into a terrorizing nightmare “so far outside anything we’d trained for or understood.” After terrorists seized their campsite and took the group hostage, drastic lethal measures were their only option, and Tommy pushed one of their captors off the mountain edge to his death. She and Tommy returned traumatized. “I couldn’t show him this darkness,” she writes, “could not tell him that I was still braced, every second, for the next threat….I couldn’t think, let alone talk, in a coherent way about ‘what happened.’” Though Rodden’s ambitions became temporarily derailed, she resurfaced, fighting hard against triggering flashbacks to conquer even more impressive feats. Later chapters are equally as frank, offering glimpses into Rodden’s exhilarating climbing culture, emotional vulnerabilities, marital turmoil, and steely personal discipline, which continues to ensure her survival.

A dramatic account of an international ordeal that nearly upended the career of a fearless young rock climber.