Chessler Books
Rock Climbing - Mountaineering - Exploration
New - Used - Collectible - Signed
Chessler Books Accepts PAYPAL Chessler Books Accepts VISA Chessler Books Accepts MASTERCARD Chessler Books Accepts DISCOVER CARD Chessler Books Accepts AMERICAN EXPRESS
All Orders Shipped via United States Postal Service   Chessler Books Ships Via USPS
Author:
Title:
Keyword:
Item #:
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M Mc N O P Q
R S T U V W X Y Z
Item #: PL161-9603
TALKING TO ANGELS: A LIFE SPENT IN HIGH LATITUDES Robert Perkins 1996 1st ed Hardcover DJ New Multiple Copies Available
By Perkins, Robert
Price: $4.99

List Price: $18.00
You Save $13.01 (72%)



Add to wish list


Detailed Product Description
Boston, 1996, 1st edition. 106 pp, photos. New hardcover with dust jacket.

The 'angels' of the title are the fearsome guards in a psychiatric hospital where, at 19, Perkins was confined for a year in 1968. Here, nearly three decades later, he is able to recreate that surreal experience in a miraculous blend of the objective and sensate realities.
 
No less stunning are his accounts of frightening and exhilarating months spent alone on the Arctic tundra, where he lived in a meat locker, and of the anguishing death of his young wife after three months of marriage. But although these three powerful tales might otherwise be depressing, they are rescued by Perkins's sense of the absurd and by a voice, pure and beautiful, that speaks compellingly of fear and bravery, of an intimacy with nature and of love and loss. Perkins, a documentary filmmaker and author (Into the Great Solitude), has produced a small classic on journeys into the human condition.

A fragile, dolorous triptych of derangement, exploration, and loss from the Arctic-rambling filmmaker Perkins (Into the Great Solitude, 1991, etc.). This memoir starts with the 19-year-old Perkins being packed off, raving, to a psychiatric hospital. His mind is in chaos, and his days at the institution--doped up, surrounded by comrades-in-unbalance, wrapped in wet sheets for being a bad boy- -are like a dream, a really bad dream (the angels of the title are, in part, the none-too-sensitive ward attendants at the hospital).
 
When he manages to tuck in the frayed edges, he heads for an equally unforgiving terrain: the Arctic Northwest Territories of Canada, there to serve as a weather watcher for the region's pilots. His stint completed, he embarks on a long, moseying canoe voyage along far-north riverways, frequently getting out of the water to explore the hinterland, something few Arctic travelers do. Here he finds the setting that will make his reputation as a writer and public-television filmmaker; as much as any outlander can, he stitches himself right into the landscape, at one point communing with a dead musk ox for a few days, emerging with an undistilled reverence for both beast and place.
 
Then the story jumps to the year following his young wife's death of cancer (another of the title's angels, this time truly angelic), as Perkins must once again darn an unraveled sleeve of life. Back in Massachusetts, where his wife had undergone treatment (and also where he had done time in the asylum), Perkins frames a series of quick remembrances of her, capturing the unsettled peace he has made with dark circumstance. Perkins's 46 years have been a long, hard haul, but the guy's an artful survivor, unafraid to face the demons.

Other Items You Might Like

  • Similar Items Available
  • Items From This Author
  • Items From This Category
ALPINE JOURNAL 100s OF INDIVIDUAL ISSUES LISTED HERE! PAPERBACK, WRAPPERS or HARDCOVER ISSUES 1863-1986
By: Alpine Club UK
Price $10.00
- Item # JR207B
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE ASCENT: A NOVEL Jeff Long 1992 1st US ed Hardcover DJ Fine SIGNED by Jeff Long Multiple Copies Available Winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize
By: Long, Jeff
Price $45.00
- Item # BK884B-8583
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
SUMMIT MAGAZINE USA BACK ISSUES 1960s: This List is of Available Issues between 1960-1969
By: Summit Magazine
Price $10.00 ~ Regular $20.00, You Save $10.00 (50%)
- Item # JR154J-868
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
SUMMIT MAGAZINE USA BACK ISSUES 1990s: 1990-1995 See This List of Available Issues
By: Summit Magazine
Price $10.00 ~ Regular $20.00, You Save $10.00 (50%)
- Item # JR154A-868
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
MAZAMA BULLETIN Individual Back Issues 1905 - 1975 New issues recently added
By: Mazama Bulletin
Price $5.00
- Item # JR225-127
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE WALL [Yosemite Novel] 2006 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine SIGNED by Jeff Long Multiple copies available
By: Long, Jeff
Price $14.95 ~ Regular $34.99, You Save $20.04 (57%)
- Item # BK2077B-8614
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
TRAIL AND TIMBERLINE 1962 - 1998 As Available Not a Set $5 each
By: Colorado Mountain Club
Price $5.00 ~ Regular $10.00, You Save $5.00 (50%)
- Item # JR727A-966
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE CLIMBING ART MAGAZINE Individual Back Issues Numbers 1 to 31
By: Climbing Art Magazine, Pat Ament
Price $10.00
- Item # JR156-869
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
CHOMOLUNGMA SINGS THE BLUES: TRAVELS ROUND EVEREST Ed Douglas 1997 1st UK ed Hardcover DJ Fine
By: Douglas, Ed
Price $19.99 ~ Regular $125.00, You Save $105.01 (84%)
- Item # BK393B-934
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
TO EVEREST VIA ANTARCTICA: CLIMBING SOLO ON THE HIGHEST PEAK OF EACH OF THE WORLD'S SEVEN CONTINENTS 1996 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine SIGNED by Robert Anderson
By: Anderson, Robert Mads, Foreword by Sir Edmund Hillary
Price $45.00 ~ Regular $55.00, You Save $10.00 (18%)
- Item # OP7740B-853
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
Sorry, we were unable find any similar items available by this author.


BELAYING THE LEADER Richard Leonard 1947 reprint of the original Sierra Club article. Pamphlet, VG Multiple copies available
By: Leonard, Richard, etc.
Price $4.99
- Item # OP145B-8724
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
AMERICANS ON EVEREST: THE OFFICIAL ACCOUNT James Ramsey Ullman 1964 1st ed Hardcover DJ Near Fine
By: Ullman, James Ramsey
Price $9.99 ~ Regular $49.95, You Save $39.96 (80%)
- Item # OP389B-882
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
GUIDE TO ALASKA AND THE YUKON Lou Jacobin 1966 Softcover Very Good
By: Jacobin, Lou
Price $4.99 ~ Regular $60.00, You Save $55.01 (92%)
- Item # GB7485-874
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
WALKA O SZCZYT SWIATA [FIGHT FOR THE TOP OF THE WORLD: 1952 SWISS EVEREST EXPEDITIONS] Jan Kazimierz Dorawski 1955 Softcover Near Fine
By: Dorawski, Jan
Price $4.99 ~ Regular $49.95, You Save $44.96 (90%)
- Item # OP6394-473
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
MOUNTAIN WORLD 1968/1969 Hardcover DJ Very Good-Fine Multiple Copies Available
By: Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research
Price $19.95 ~ Regular $75.00, You Save $55.05 (73%)
- Item # MW1968-8613
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE CASCADES Fred Beckey 1982 1st edition DJ Fine Multiple copies available
By: Beckey, Fred. Photos by Russell Lamb.
Price $39.95 ~ Regular $150.00, You Save $110.05 (73%)
- Item # OP220-8293p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
SIERRA NEVADA DE SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA H.S. Hall 1939 Softcover Fine Multiple Copies Available
By: Hall, Henry S.
Price $5.00 ~ Regular $15.00, You Save $10.00 (67%)
- Item # OP7855-8736
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
COLORADO OUTWARD BOUND SCHOOL INSTRUCTOR'S MANUAL 1976 Fine
By: outward bound
Price $35.00
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
CHRIS BONINGTON, MOUNTAINEER: THIRTY YEARS OF CLIMBING THE WORLD'S GREAT PEAKS 1989 1st UK ed Hardcover DJ Fine SIGNED by Chris Bonington
By: Bonington, Chris
Price $85.00 ~ Regular $100.00, You Save $15.00 (15%)
- Item # OP217A-950p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
ACONCAGUA TREKKING MOUNTAINEERING TOPO MAP 1:50,000 2011 New Multiple Copies Available
By: Aconcagua, Zagier, Andes
Price $19.95 ~ Regular $28.95, You Save $9.00 (31%)
- Item # MP183-9574
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart