Possessed by Shadows

by Donigan Merritt

Book Overview

Possessed by Shadows is the story of two climbers who spend a year traveling from the rugged desert of Joshua Tree National Park to the Alps, the Himalayas, and the High Tatra mountains of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590511581
• ISBN13: 9781590511589
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Other Press (NY)
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Haunting, Unsettling, Inspiring

"Possessed by Shadows" is a brilliant and haunting novel. This work of fiction is not for the faint of heart. The narrator seizes grief and transforms it into redemptive wanderlust: venturing into the mountains, wading through memories, and scavenging for meaning. How do we live with the knowledge of impending loss? Can we ever prepare ourselves for tragedy? Are death by suicide, death by accident, and death by illness truly different? Tom and Molly struggle with these questions as they pursue their riveting journey into the mountains and their memories. This journey is horrifying yet empowering. The ending was a true heartbreak, as I had already suspected two pages into the book. The ending was uplifting nonetheless. Stefan, the bearded man and passionate melancholic who conquered the mountains with the couple when Molly was still among the living, makes a haunting comment towards the end: "How could anyone not love Molly?" Stefan's question prompts the reader to reflect on our conventional definitions of success and impact. During Molly's tender journey on earth, she did leave her imprints in the emotional world of others: that in itself is a tremendous success and impact. Although someone once pointed out that this book is "depressing," I do not feel that way. Wrestling beauty and hope from excruciating pain is a survival skill that many of us get acquainted with at some point in our lives. If you have ever wondered how to distill otherworldly beauty from earthly sorrow, I would highly recommend reading this book.

Good Read

A worthwhile read that has a few interesting twists and turns. Topics include mountain climbers, end of life issues and marital relationships.

Shaken from my stupor

I recently went through a print reading slump. For some reason when I got back to the States about 6 months ago, I just lost all motivation to read anything much more challenging than a newspaper supplement. I mean, I was still getting countless tens of thousands of words off the internet, but while that is reading, in that eyes were moving over words, it's not reading, like eyes moving over, say, During the Rains. Not that I didn't try. Oh, I tried. Picked up Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust from the local library, a book utterly unavailable in my former Third World abode, which I'd been looking forward to reading for a long time. Couldn't get into it. Tried Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, which I was forced to read in high school and wanted to come back to as an adult. It didn't take. Went for Richard Ford's A Piece of My Heart, which read like Cormac McCarthy For Kids. Nope. The obvious culprit: wireless internet and a lightweight, non-thigh-scorching laptop spewing out the ceaseless offerings of the google-deity. And a comfy couch. I'd never lived in a place with all three before. I surrendered. Wallowed in mudpits of sweet, sweet information. (Though I never took to tweet-bleating.) Probably a deeper malaise was at work. Crossing the pond will do that to you, I guess. More on that later, possibly, if ever I get on a confessional jag in these blog parts. Better, it'll get turned into some stories worth reading. I use this long prologue by way of introducing Donigan Merritt's Possessed by Shadows. This was the book that, a few weeks back, shook me from my stupor. For an excellent full review, I direct you (once again) to Brad Green. He gives the kind of write-up that does this fine book justice. For my part, I'll just say that I've thought a lot about Possessed by Shadows, and why it grabbed hold of my literary attention span where half a dozen other candidates - and not a ringer in the bunch - failed. I still don't have a good answer, but I didn't want to put off writing this post any longer. For one thing, I promised Donigan Merritt, who I now have the excellent good fortune to be in contact with and who is a regular EE commenter, that I would. For another, a day that goes by when you aren't reaching for Possessed by Shadows is a day you're squandering. I can't pin down just what it is Possessed by Shadows has. But it has it in spades. Merritt pulls off the very tricky trick of writing about a foreign locale without being either smugly knowlegeable or all guidebooky. Is Bratislava, Slovakia a place you're dying to know about? Me neither. But Merritt makes Iron Curtain-era Czechoslovakia a grayly fascinating place, while sparing us the Wiki-isms a lot of writers insert like they're being graded on it. He also writes compellingly about rock climbing, another topic in which I am marginally interested at best. Same rules apply: no needless trivia, no constant assertion of authorial authority.

Possessed by Shadows takes one on an unforgettable expedition deep into Slovakia's Tatras Mountains

Mountains matter in a country often referred to as the rooftop of Central Europe." Possessed by Shadows takes one on an unforgettable expedition deep into Slovakia's Tatras Mountains-a human as well as physical journey of three climbers and the tangled lives they lead. Donigan Merritt, the author of five other novels and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' workshop, is a master at crafting a novel that moves back in forth in time and relies on several voices as opposed to a single narrator. This is a book that seems chaotic initially but comes together magically at the end. Bits and pieces of information coalesce into a logical whole by the closing pages of the novel. Merritt also is skilled at creating characters. Although he is a male writer, his female characters are the most masterful and compelling-especially Molly and Sasha. Furthermore, it's obvious from this book that he has traveled and climbed in Slovakia and understands the country's cultural and physical geography very well. His book captures a very important slice of that country's history-the dark period just before the Velvet Revolution in 1989. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Slovakia, climbing, or human relationships.

A Story of Two Lovers and Their Love of Climbing.

This is a love story about two married mountain climbers, whose final climb together takes place in the beautiful Tatras mountains of Slovakia. It has beautiful naratives, authentic characters, as well many thoughtful relections. The book ends in Slovakia near the end of the Communist era and recalls to mind how awful that period was in Eastern Europe. How quickly we forget. It is a good read for climbers or non climbers alike, and for anyone interested in the realities of life in Eastern Europe before the Wall came down.