Beth Rodden's A Light Through the Cracks and a Mini Geek-Out

 

A Light Through the Cracks by Beth Rodden pub 2024

July Book Club

One of my book club members has met Beth Rodden and she recommended this memoir and I'm so glad! My first thought on this is that I found it riveting. I could hardly put it down and I don't often feel like that about many books. She has a great story, but there was a deal of craftsmanship in the telling that really drew me in. The story wasn't told lineally but jumped back and forth in time. 

Beth Rodden is a pro rock climber. I had never heard of her, but in 2000 she and 3 other climbers were abducted and held hostage for a number of days in Kyrgyzstan. 

In this memoir, the trauma of the abduction is a pivotal theme. In many ways, the story recounts how it influenced the trajectory of her life and how she recovered from it. Having known nothing about her story, and being the relational drama monger that I am, I was especially curious to see how things would play out with her fellow hostage member, her boyfriend Tommy Caldwell. 

She and Tommy had just begun their relationship prior to their sponsored trip to Kyrgyzstan. She confessed in the book that she had been thinking about breaking things off prior to the trip; the reader infers that there was a degree of uncertainty on her side. Tommy ends up pushing their captor off a cliff precipitating their escape. The two of them share an intense moment in which she pledges her love. 

Their trauma bond leads them into a continuance of their romantic commitment, eventual marriage, and professional partnership. 

The reader senses the unease that shrouded Beth's thoughts and feelings about their relationship which eventually ended in divorce after Beth falls in love with a charismatic boulderer. (I'm oversimplifying here)

As a wanna-be outdoor enthusiast, I enjoyed the details about her climbs and the discipline involved in pursuing new feats. I kind of went on a mini geek out about climbing. I even watched the incredible documentary The Dawn Wall Watch the Dawn Wall Here about Tommy Caldwell and friend's epic climb up a previously unconquered stretch of Yosemite's El Capitan. Ooh I just remembered I was going to muster up the courage to watch that crazy documentary about the bro who free climbs El Cap. (note resume geek-out)

 ~note that I actually attempted no climbing - as I have a relatively paralyzing fear of heights. To get above half-way up a climbing wall I would need like an Oprah level encouragement coach to shout affirmations at me. I like the terms though. Here are a few.

Pitch -  The climbing route between two belay points with a "full pitch" being the length of the rope, circa 50 metres

Portaledge - those terrifying little tents they pitch on the sides of sheer walls

To belay - means to secure a climber or a rope using friction, or to fasten a line around a pin or cleat.

I do like scrambling around on rocks that aren't too high. On the ranches I grew up on, we had quite a few large boulders and rocks and I spent time climbing them and then looking down in terror and somehow descending, half-crawling, half sliding. 

I admire Beth's courage in relating her story so authentically.