I love disaster stories: this one not so much

You can learn a lot from disaster stories. Don’t go on a maiden voyage of anything that claims to be the fastest, longest, biggest, or most unsinkable whatever of all time; don’t live in California; don’t cook over an open campfire in a forest during a historic drought, don’t run a marathon in the Sahara; don’t go mountain climbing in the winter. In Holding Fast: The Untold Story of the Mount Hood Disaster, we learn about what can occur when even experienced climbers attempt a mountain ascent in winter. Ostensibly, the tale is about three climbers who try to summit Mount Hood by scaling its icy north face, with the intent to “down climb” the mountain’s other side. The narrative is told by Karen James, widow of Kelly James, one of the doomed climbers.


Good disaster stories have certain conventions that lovers of the genre have come to expect. We hope for a gripping tale, and we’ve got that here. We know the end of disaster tales (was there anyone in the theater during the film Titanic who didn’t know it wasn’t just an old-fashioned episode of Love Boat?) and, ironically, that’s where the tale derives much of its suspense. How will the protagonists deal with what’s facing them? What choices will they make? How do their individual choices weigh against the seemingly random events taking shape? We also have characters who are intrepid risk takers, and we get enough information about Kelly James’ early life to know he came from a disadvantaged background, which makes him perfect fodder for an “against-all-odds” story.


In Holding Fast, we’re familiar with the tear-jerking media coverage of the search and rescue teams’ fruitless efforts. The suspense comes from who did what when, and who knew what when. Karen James frames her tale in day-by-day briefings on the search, complete with details back-filled from messages left on her husband’s cell phone as he lay dying in a snow cave. The suspense also comes from following a character who rose from difficult circumstances in his childhood to professional and personal heights, literally, before facing this last challenge. It’s exciting, and heart-breaking, and maddening, which is what a fulfilling disaster story is all about.


What doesn’t fit the generic mold here is the one-sided view of the disaster. Because it’s told by his widow, the story is disturbingly focused on just one climber. We don’t even learn what the other climbers did for a living. We know, tangentially, that they have families, because those folks are on the periphery of Ms. James’ own vigil for her husband, but we know not much more, other than that they were experienced climbers who were loyal friends to Kelly James (one of the more unsettling moments in the narrative comes just after Karen James hears the news about her husband; although the other families have been sharing the search and vigil with her, “to avoid exposing the James children to the media glare,” Karen James immediately returns with them to her hometown of Dallas, without learning the fate of the other climbers).


The other non-generic element is the focus on Karen James’ faith. Every chapter is punctuated by references to the James’ faith in Christianity, with the climb and its aftermath seeming to be there merely to show readers Karen James’ own spiritual struggle. The book ends up being more about this spiritual wrestling (and, perhaps understandably, about creating a lasting memorial to her husband) than it is about a climbing trip gone terribly wrong. We can see why Karen James would use her skills (she co-owns her own PR agency) to shape her husband’s image, particularly for his children, and in the face of some criticism of his actions. However, Holding Fast is an oddly context-less account that leaves me wishing the book were more about climbing than about a personal journey. After all, bigger, more important questions for readers loom, and Karen James never addresses them: how should we view those whose personal journeys ultimately imperil others?