The Boys Done Well - Review of 'The Boys Of Everest' by Clint Willis

We read "'to leave behind the tether of a single mind ...and deviate into the minds and bodies of others."
Virginia Woolf.


This book, by American author Clint Willis, carries the sub-title 'Chris Bonnington and the Tragic Story of Climbing's Greatest Generation' and for me, the book tells that story in a wonderfully compelling fashion. I think Willis' sucess with this book is in large part due to the fact that it does exactly what it says on the tin - tells a Story - rather than simply cataloguing the well documented events of this momentous era in British/World climbing.

The characters are well known, Whillans; Brown; Scott; Haston; Boysen; Boardman; Tasker et al the 'Tragic' part of the sub- title being, of course, that the majority of them died young in pursuit of their goals.

Willis has done his own extensive research and this is not simply a rehash of what has gone before. Obviously much is owed to the various 'expedition' books Annapurna South Face, Everest the Hard Way etc. but what makes the difference is that Willis goes beyond this into interviews with families and friends, extensive use of Journals , letters and other hitherto unpublished sources.

What could arguably have proven the most contentious parts of the book have, in my opinion, proven to be its greatest strength, that of moving into the realms of 'story'. I would hesitate to call this fiction because, although fulfilling all the rquirements of that genre, the passages I refer to go further than that description alone would suggest. The passages concerned are narrated by an omniscient presence travelling with some of these climbers shortly before their deaths and deal with emotions and feelings that only the climber himself could have known about. So yes, in one sense they are fiction, they are 'made up' but I would argue that it is in these passages that Willis sets himself apart from other more prosaic authors and thus ensures both a wide readership and a lasting place in the literature of climbing.

As editor of a climbing Journal, I receive many review books, rarely do I read them cover to cover first day - this is one such book.

cjo. Edinburgh 17.12.06