Enough - Melissa Arnot Reid
When Penguin Random House asked me to review the memoir of the first American woman to summit Everest without oxygen, I jumped at the opportunity. Melissa Arnot Reid hasn't been up there just once, you know, like a “normal” person.
No. Everest was Reid’s playground. It was her backyard. Every single season.
In her memoir, out next week, she tells us how family trauma and severe neglect led her to leave the world behind, looking at it from the most vertically removed point.
She brings us along on her journey, so we can experience the fascinating void she seeks out time and time again. We even get to live through her friendships with such figures as mountaineering great Ueli Steck, who once invited her to the Alps. Can you imagine she called it the hardest climbing challenge she'd done? You know, because Everest is really just a walk in the park.
All banter aside, I devoured Reid's story. I identified in so many ways, beginning with the childhood neglect, the need to escape to the mountains, the need to persevere in a men's world. Above all, with the long and winding road to uncovering an inner emotional world.
Thank you Melissa Arnot Reid for your powerful modesty, for your strength, for being a woman who inspires us all.
In gratitude to Penguin Random House for the invitation to review this title.
Out April 1, 2025.
