In April of 1992 a man named Christopher Johnson McCandless hitchhiked to Alaska and hiked into the wilderness just north of Mt. McKinley. He gave $25,000 of his savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.
There was a man named Christopher Johnson McCandless who had grown up like anyone else and just finished college. After graduating from college in 1991, McCandless wandered through the West and Southwest on a journy. He abandoned his car in the Mojave Desert, tore off its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He gave himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and , with no money and belongings, he was free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature holds. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw the maps away. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.
Jon Krakauer constructs a clarifying prism through which he reassembles the disquieting facts of McCandless's short life. Admitting an interst that borders on obsession, he searches for the clues to the dries and desires that propelled McCandless. Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.
When McCandless's innocent mistakes turn out to be irreversible and fatal, he becomes the stuff of tabloid headlines and is dismissed for his naiveté, pretensions, and hubris. He is said to have had a death wish but wanting to die is a very different thing from being compelled to look over the edge.