Finding Everett Ruess: The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness Explorer

by David Roberts Narrated by Arthur Morey

Overview

The definitive biography of Everett Ruess, the artist, writer, and eloquent celebrator of the wilderness whose bold solo explorations of the American West and mysterious disappearance in the Utah desert at age twenty have earned him a large and devoted cult following.

“Easily one of [Roberts's] best . . . thoughtful and passionate . . . a compelling portrait of the Ruess myth.”-Outside

Wandering alone with burros and pack horses through California and the Southwest for five years in the early 1930s, on voyages lasting as long as ten months, Ruess became friends with photographers Edward Weston and Dorothea Lange, swapped prints with Ansel Adams, took part in a Hopi ceremony, learned to speak Navajo, and was among the first "outsiders" to venture deeply into what was then (and to some extent still is) largely a little-known wilderness. When he vanished without a trace in November 1934, Ruess left behind thousands of pages of journals, letters, and poems, as well as more than a hundred watercolor paintings and blockprint engravings.

Everett Ruess is hailed as a paragon of solo exploration, while the mystery of his death remains one of the greatest riddles in the annals of American adventure. David Roberts began probing the life and death of Everett Ruess for National Geographic Adventure magazine in 1998. Finding Everett Ruess is the result of his personal journeys into the remote areas explored by Ruess, his interviews with oldtimers who encountered the young vagabond and with Ruess's closest living relatives, and his deep immersion in Ruess's writings and artwork. More than seventy-five years after his vanishing, Ruess stirs the kinds of passion and speculation accorded such legendary doomed American adventurers as Into the Wild's Chris McCandless and Amelia Earhart.

Editorial Reviews

SEPTEMBER 2011 - AudioFile

Listening to the author’s obsession with 20-year-old poet and artist Everett Ruess, who in 1934 disappeared near Escalante, Utah, is as exhausting and disturbing as the author’s journey to uncover Ruess’s remains. Narrator Arthur Morey portrays Ruess’s youthful voice in readings from the journals and letters he wrote home, most of which fail to describe the “beauty” he sought and instead demand money from his parents to continue his solo adventures in the Wild West. Morey’s artful and honest presentation doesn’t ameliorate Roberts’s overwritten and tedious account, nor his quest, supported in part by The National Geographic Society, which ultimately, and embarrassingly, led to the unearthing of a Navajo grave he thought was Ruess’s burial site. K.P. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Kate Tuttle

…David Roberts's compelling, humane book about the young adventurer, seeks to replace hagiography with explanation, pondering "a riddle that has no parallel in the history of the American West." As he explores the Ruess myth and reality, Roberts leaves us with great sympathy for this lost boy and especially for his family, who never stopped believing he might someday return.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

In this exhaustive biography, Roberts (No Shortcuts to the Top) retraces the life and disappearance of Everett Ruess in 1934. A young artist and adventurer, Ruess left home in Los Angeles at 16 and spent most of the following four years traveling alone through the remotest regions of the American West. He chronicled his adventures in letters, journals, and watercolors, and soon after he vanished in the backcountry of southern Utah, a legend grew around the handsome and troubled wanderer. Roberts deftly recounts the development of Ruess's celebrity and the controversies that continue to surround the mystery of his death. As a biographer, Roberts faced a difficult task: Ruess was not well-known in his lifetime, and the extensive gaps in his own accounts of his travels are only sparsely supplemented by the testimonies of those he encountered. This lack of evidence added fuel to the legend, and Roberts spends a great deal of time examining theories about Ruess—especially the claim that he was both gay and suicidal. Roberts's thoroughness leads to tedium at times, but his approach captures the complexity of his subject. (July)

From the Publisher

An irresistible read . . . a remarkable book . . . Roberts makes the mystery of Ruess’s evanescent existence more compelling than ever.”—Jon Krakauer, from the foreword

“Everett Lives! If not in a desert canyon, then at least among the pages where David Roberts brings the young man’s life and legend all together: his writings and art, his kinship with nature, his love for adventure and beauty, and the yet-evolving mystery of his disappearance. Count me one among many inspired by a young adventurer who lived in beauty and left us too soon. May we never stop wandering.”—Aron Ralston, author of Between a Rock and a Hard Place and subject of the film 127 Hours

“Anyone intrigued by the Ruess phenomenon will be enthralled with Roberts’ review of the young man’s biography, the stature of his artistic achievements and unrealized potential, and efforts to find and eventually memorialize him. . . . This is sure to appeal to fans of wilderness wanderers.”—Booklist

“Absorbing . . . [a] readable look at a complex personality in wilderness exploration.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Roberts deftly . . . captures the complexity of his subject.”—Publishers Weekly

SEPTEMBER 2011 - AudioFile

Listening to the author’s obsession with 20-year-old poet and artist Everett Ruess, who in 1934 disappeared near Escalante, Utah, is as exhausting and disturbing as the author’s journey to uncover Ruess’s remains. Narrator Arthur Morey portrays Ruess’s youthful voice in readings from the journals and letters he wrote home, most of which fail to describe the “beauty” he sought and instead demand money from his parents to continue his solo adventures in the Wild West. Morey’s artful and honest presentation doesn’t ameliorate Roberts’s overwritten and tedious account, nor his quest, supported in part by The National Geographic Society, which ultimately, and embarrassingly, led to the unearthing of a Navajo grave he thought was Ruess’s burial site. K.P. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

The absorbing story of wilderness explorer Everett Ruess, who has gained a cult-like following since his disappearance in 1934.

In adventure writer Roberts' (The Last of His Kind: The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer, 2010) latest, the author examines the life of Ruess, who was born in 1914 to caring, if over-involved parents. From a young age, he was fascinated with nature. At 16, he set off on the first of his expeditions, hitchhiking from Los Angeles to Carmel, then moving on to Big Sur. Roberts depicts Ruess as intelligent but somewhat naïve, and completely unable to support himself. He became increasingly dependent on his cash-strapped parents to fund his wanderings, and his sense of entitlement deepened over the course of his short life. The author relies on Ruess' surviving letters and journals to paint a portrait of the explorer, and they reveal a moody, pensive and often troubled young man who had a disdain for sedentary life: "I don't think I could ever settle down. I have known too much of the depths of life already, and I would prefer anything to an anticlimax." The second half of the book delves into the possible fate of the explorer, presenting readers with four possible outcomes: suicide, murder, accidental death or withdrawal into hiding. Roberts explores each of these avenues thoroughly, providing both sides of each argument before laying out his own investigation. Though readers may be left with niggling doubts—Roberts chronicles many hoaxes with regards to Ruess' disappearance—in the end, he makes a convincing case.

A well-researched, readable look at a complex personality in wilderness exploration.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169355666
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/19/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,176,268

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