Icarus Syndrome
Icarus Syndrome
by John Long
Release Date: May 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-942549-83-3
Taking risks and exploring the unknown are as vital to human beings as our need for air, for growth, for affi rmation that we exist for something. These 19 stories reach deep into humanity’s compulsion for the rush of new experiences. But gently, because it’s not only records we might shatter. When does adventure turn to recklessness? What happens when we toe the edge above the void and face the big silence, where we might see God -- and die without warning? The Icarus Syndrome seeks to capture our push for more and hold it to the light, lofty and free, for as long as we dare tempt the downward slip. Both are possible; only one is assured.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN LONG was an original member of the legendary "Stonemasters," a core group of California climbers who lit the fuse on the modern adventure sports revolution. His incredible feats include the fi rst one-day ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. Long describes himself as "a writer who just happens to get caught up in climbing and adventuring."
John Long has written over 40 books, with nearly three million copies in print. His literary short stories have been translated into many languages. He is the recipient of a National Book Award, the H. Adams Carter Literary Award from the American Alpine Club, and has won the Grand Prize at the Ban Film and Book Festival.
John Long has two beautiful daughters and two grandchildren. He currently resides in Venice Beach, California.
REVIEWS
"Adventure and climbing legend John Long is an oddity, 'cause not many adventurers can write, and not many writers can climb, kayak, etc. John Long’s Icarus Syndrome is a colorful brew of adventurers, heroes and misfits, and John writes about them with a curiously muscular, effortless literary style to impart such sensitive insights."
Steve Schwartz, producer for The Road, The Counselor, All the Old Knives, and president of Chockstone Pictures
“Icarus is John Long’s howl of praise for the excesses and triumphs of meteoric youth. In these deft autobiographical sketches, spangled with his gift for the mordant phrase, Long evokes all the sense of living life to the hilt that infuses the writings of one of America’s greatest practitioners of the art.”
David Roberts author of The Mountain of My Fear, The Bears Ears: A Human History, and other books
