The circumstances of Weathers's miraculous survival were widely reported in the press and in Jon Krakauer's mammoth bestseller Into Thin Air. Less well known are the circumstances that led him there, and the long recovery that only began with his dramatic rescue.

Lanky and gregarious, pathologist Weathers began mountain-climbing in his mid-thirties to ward off the black dogs of depression. It was a self-prescribed therapy with a severe cost: an increasing remove from his devoted wife, Peach, and their two children. By the time he embarked on the Everest expedition, his marriage and family life had all but disintegrated -- yet when he was reported dead, it was Peach who orchestrated the daring rescue that brought him home. And it was only then that Beck began to face himself, his family, his past, and his future.

Bold, candid, and uncompromising, Beck Weathers's story is a deeply compelling one of loss and regeneration, of midlife crisis and change, and of the abiding power of love and family.