Steven Heighton
Knopf Canada
It has been weeks since I finished this novel. I really would have gotten to it sooner, but work has been very hectic and I was more-or-less obsessed with the Tour de France. It's hard to write about a serious book when you're shouting crazily at the television. Oh, for those of you that have been following along, my guys came in 18th and 68th respectively. Go team!
Every Lost Country is a fictional story (based on a real event that occured in 2006) about a doctor/humanitarian who has signed up to provide medical support for a Canadian climbing expedition along the Tibet-Nepal border. One morning, while most of the climbers are making their way down from another camp, the doctor and his daugher are drawn into an international incident when they try to assist some Tibetans who are fleeing the Chinese authorities. Filming the incidint as part of the backstory for her documentary about the climb, a Chinese-Canadian woman is captured along with the doctor, his daughter and the hopeful refugees. Their treatment by the Chinese, their eventual escape, and their terrifying journey across the bone-chilling slopes of the Himalayas is gripping -- so much so that the book was impossible to put down until I had read the last page.
If an action-packed plot and elegant writing isn't enough to lure you in, the book is also compelling because it is a highly moral story that, at times, reminds me of a modern Everyman where characters are neither purely good nor purely evit. Think Conrad meets morality play -- same vivid characterizations and intellectually challenging situtions -- all woven into a beautiful narrative that catches the reader off guard. I'm not kidding -- you really do want to pick this up. Four and half prayer flags out of five.
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