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The Way Out: A True Story of Ruin and Survival
The Way Out: A True Story of Ruin and Survival
Author: Craig Childs
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Category: Book

List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $11.31
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New (6) from $11.31

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars 9 reviews
Sales Rank: 897409

Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.3 x 1.2

Dewey Decimal Number: 917.9
ASIN: B000Y8U5KS

Publication Date: March 8, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Also Available In:

  • Paperback - The Way Out: A True Story of Ruin and Survival
  • Hardcover - The Way Out: A True Story of Survival
  • Kindle Edition - The Way Out

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
In this taut, intensely dramatic narrativethe record of a perilous excursion into a remote and unmappable labyrinth of canyons in the American Southwesttwo men confront immutable forces of nature and the limits of their own sanity. As a chronicle of adventure, as emotionally charged human drama, as confessional memoir, THE WAY OUT is a transcendent booka work destined to earn a lasting place in the literature of extremes.


Customer Reviews:   Read 4 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars An Incredible Journey   May 14, 2007
 7 out of 10 found this review helpful

The Way Out is a book you'll want to read over and over again. It's just too powerful to fully absorb in one reading. As with "The Secret Knowledge of Water", Mr. Childs leads you into the very psyche of Living Land. He bears his soul and humbles himself before a chasm of rock. An absolute master of imagery and metaphor, Mr. Childs doesn't just take you into the majesty of a canyon or the solitude of the desert, he empties you out there so that you might fill again. "The Way Out" is his best work yet.

Susan Haley, Author
RAINY DAY PEOPLE



5 out of 5 stars A hard-hitting account of discovery   June 21, 2006
 6 out of 8 found this review helpful

A two-weep trip through the American Southwest with a good friends turns into a challenge which will test friendship and survival skills in THE WAY OUT: A TRUE STORY OF RUIN AND SURVIVAL. Any with a special affection for the Southwest will find vivid descriptions of its terrain and desolation as they enjoy this memoir of survival, a hit in hardcover and newly available in paperback to provide a hard-hitting account of discovery.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch



3 out of 5 stars Take stock of what has happened along your own walk!   March 23, 2006
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

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.







2 out of 5 stars Let's talk about real survival   November 27, 2005
 7 out of 34 found this review helpful

With all due respect (I find most of Craig's other books written with both elegance and restraint; amd his solo explorations acts of courage and surrender.), these two men went out for a month, with top-of-the-line gear, plenty of food (cached and otherwise) and, in fact, were in no real danger. A real survivor is a grandmother on food stamps, taking care of and loving five grand-kids, in a roach motel, with no vehicle and a greedy landlord.
Or a woman with a double mastectomy, who finds out she had bone cancer and decides it is time to learn how to drum because she has wanted to all her life, and knows each 3-month check-up might be her last.




5 out of 5 stars A gem. Childs delivers another masterpiece.   September 3, 2005
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

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 enviornment. Beyond the physical endurance required to pass this route, the 2 men reflect on their past struggles with socitenty, 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 lengend or tale.

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


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