TWO FOR THE SUMMIT

Novelist and sportswriter Norman (Deep End, 1994, etc.) chronicles the birth, travails, and pleasures of a father-daughter climbing partnership.

As his 50th year approached, the author decided it would be a good idea to climb the Grand Teton. To his immediate dismay, then growing pleasure, his 15-year-old daughter, Brooke, wanted to join him. Norman, who makes his living as an outdoor writer (he writes in that nostalgic, raspy campfire voice of the upscale hook-and-bullet magazines), had spent his time afield primarily with other men, yet he was immediately taken with being in his daughter's company. A loving dad escorting his precious bundle into the high reaches of rock climbing? Yes, Norman admits, there is danger involved, and he is perfectly frank about why he is drawn to the peaks: “The undeniable truth is that risk lies at the heart of the appeal of mountain climbing . . . Taking risks and surviving is, quite simply, exhilarating.” In the mouth of someone taking these risks with a teenage girl, those remarks sound both irresponsible and foolish, but the writer doesn't mind sounding foolish: “Better to fall to my doom in front of her eyes than for her to see me wimp out.” Norman covers a decent amount of rock-climbing history, and more than a decent amount of background material on his daughter's schooling woes and his own past sporting exploits. The tone darkens somewhat when he turns to their climb of Aconcagua, an Andean 23,000-footer that rang his gong mightily while Brooke moved smoothly to the top, physically and emotionally. But on balance this is no harrowing saga on the order of Into Thin Air, just a homey and satisfying series of adventures.

Not a book that invites a second reading, but any parent would be impressed by the Normans' achievements, and the understated pride with which Dad recounts them gives it power.