Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for adding my memoir your reading list. To give you a little background - I’m a retired risk scientist. For over twenty years I studied risks ranging from exploding gas pipelines to medical errors to radioactive waste to asteroids hitting the Earth. Shortly after I retired, I realized few people who work in risk (or in general) have experienced risky lives, aside from everyday risks such as driving a car, eating unhealthy food, and so on. Or, they may have lived brief risky periods, such as crazy teenage years or service in the military. In contrast, I‘ve done and been subjected to risky stuff over a period of six decades. Further, my rough childhood probably affected my view of risk throughout my life.
A major source of risk in my life is mountain climbing, I’ve climbed a lot of mountains, ever since I was a teenager trying to escape his dysfunctional family. The cover of the book shows me smiling on top of a Canadian mountain, shortly before a thunderstorm almost fried me and my wife. Initial drafts included more mountain climbing than the published memoir. I cut these sections down, because I didn’t want the book to be about climbing. I was never a famous climber, and most people who choose books in the ‘adventure’ genre want to read about famous people doing amazing things. I wanted to entertain readers with stories about a wide variety of my life’s risks, but also educate as to how I managed them. I don’t think most people think about risk in the way that I do, and I thought it might be both instructive and entertaining.
I’m not a trained writer, and I’ve never taken any creative writing courses. This made writing a good memoir challenging. I wrote many scientific papers and reports in my career, but my previous non-technical writing was limited to a few climbing trip reports. Most writing involves telling a story, but nobody wants to read a dry, clinical description of somebody else’s life. I can’t emphasize enough how much my editor helped improve my risky story.
Putting my story ‘out there’ was a big risk in itself. I was gratified when I started to get good reviews, and one even said reading my book was like watching a scary movie. However, my intent was to not only entertain, but also to educate. Another reviewer put it this way: “You can kick back and enjoy the read and its many 'holy s&%t' moments, or you can take up the challenge to think about - and to digest - the lessons learned and the impacts of choices and associated actions and outcomes”. This is exactly what I intended. Most books I’ve enjoyed over the years have struck me in a similar fashion.
So, dear reader, I hope you enjoy my story as much as I’ve enjoyed my life!
Love, Robert
Robert has a BS in Botany, a BS in Science Education, an MS in Environmental Health, and a Certificate in Integrated Business Administration. He is ABD (all but dissertation) in a Toxicology PhD program. He is an ordained Minister and has an honorary Doctorate of Metaphysics from the Universal Life Church and is a Member of the Nova Scotia L’Ordre du Bon Temps, or Order of the Good Time.
He was born in North Carolina and lived there for over twenty years, but has since lived in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and Alberta. He was also homeless for a time while a laborer in the Western United States. He currently resides in Colorado.
Robert and his wife Linda have climbed hundreds of technical and non-technical mountain, rock, ice, and canyon routes, hiked thousands of miles in several countries, and skied many miles of vertical feet at resorts and in the backcountry.
Robert is an avid amateur photographer, largely of outdoor subjects. He is a musician who plays hand, stick, and mallet percussion, and who can sing, but rarely does for unclear reasons. He is an amateur sound engineer and producer and has recorded more than a thousand written and improvisational instrumental pieces with other musicians to date. He was trying to learn to relax in retirement, but then he discovered non-technical writing. He has written a memoir and a poetry collection and is working on short stories.
Through Dangerous Doors is his latest book.
Visit his website at https://robertcharleslee.com or follow him on Goodreads.
In a life defined by risk, Robert Charles Lee experiences a poor and free-ranging childhood in the racist South of the 1960s. After his father dies, the family grows dysfunctional. As a result, teen-age Robert seeks sanity and solace by rock climbing solo and driving cars fast. He wins a scholarship and graduates from university, but still seeks to escape the South.
Moving to Alaska and the Western US, Robert works in a series of dangerous and brutal jobs. He meets and marries Linda, who enjoys climbing and skiing difficult mountains as much as he does. Simultaneously, Robert trains in the science of risk to become a respected professional risk scientist.
Robert shares his remarkable story as he guides the reader through a series of dangerous but rewarding doors, culminating in a vivid journey of adventure and risk.
“Through Dangerous Doors is an engaging and snappily written reflection on a life charted by risk. Like the dangerous mountains he eventually comes to climb, Lee’s need to be on the edge and in the flow guide him on a fascinating ascent up the American socio-economic pyramid, a challenging mountain in itself, and geographically from the lowland South to high country of the North. Small wonder that when Lee and his wife arrive in Calgary, Alberta to live for a decade they immerse themselves in what Lee wisely comes to realize is one of the most dangerous, yet spiritually rewarding mountain ranges in the world – the Canadian Rockies. Lee’s lifelong evaluation, and refinement of, the risk versus reward calculation is educational. And I love the way he calls poppycock when he sees it. Lee shares life lessons that were hard won and valuable to all.” – Barry Blanchard, UIAGM/IFMGA Mountain Guide, author of The Calling – A Life Rocked by Mountains, winner of the Boardman-Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature
“Much more than a book on mountaineering, Robert Charles Lee’s memoir delves deeply into the relationship between risk and reward, exploring the things we can control and those we can’t. His journey of self-discovery has resulted in a thoughtful meditation on the nature of adventure and what makes for a life well lived. Lee’s story will resonate with any readers who have experienced the incomparable satisfaction of challenging themselves while at the same time understanding the wisdom of respecting their limits.” –Scott Zesch, author of “The Captured,” winner of the TCU Texas Book Award
“This is a memoir like few others, in that the author is intent on beseeching his readers not to follow the example of his own life. The story he tells shows that this is very good advice indeed, but nevertheless his tale of improbable escapes from one looming disaster after another is both instructive and entertaining.” – William Leiss, Queen’s University, author of: In the Chamber of Risks: Understanding Risk Controversies, Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk: The Perils of Poor Risk Communication, and Risk and Responsibility
“In this engaging and very readable memoir, Robert Lee reminds us that life IS risk. Humans only continue to learn, grow and evolve through facing and conquering risks. Whether the risks are involuntary or voluntary, Lee aptly emphasizes that the key to survival, or even thriving, is how we choose to understand and manage those risks. While Lee’s recounting of his numerous climbing risk adventures reflects his personal approach to risk and risk management, his stories will resonate strongly with anyone who seeks the challenge and stimulation of being a ‘risk taker’. This book will ultimately make you examine more closely your own life in relation to the risks you choose or don’t choose to undertake.” – Cindy Jardine, University of the Fraser Valley, world record skydiver
“As autobiographies like Educated and The Glass Castle have taught us, growing up through hardship can be remarkably annealing. So too in this disarmingly honest memoir, where Lee relates his annealed response. He adeptly strings us along his extraordinary lifepath from childhood until retirement using an idiosyncratic lens: A meditation on risk serves as Lee’s through-line, one informed by his career in risk analysis. Sit and enjoy the windfall of a raconteur relaying how he and his fellow travelers have encountered and responded to risks. Many encounters, like his vivid recounts of ice and mountain climbing, are quite intense. We get a taste of life as a forester, psychedelic-explorer, musician, academic, blessed husband and alpinist. Some entrancing events, nicely infused with a humble `stock-taking’ of the cards that were dealt, and the choices made. An extraordinary story that resonates beyond risk.” – Kevin Brand, University of Ottawa
““Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all” wrote Helen Keller in her passageway focused book The Open Door. Metaphorical passageways hurtle us in and out of the risky exploits of Mr. Lee in Through Dangerous Doors. Climbing on a glacier or rappelling down a mountain, Lee shows us the thrill of daring adventure. But risk is not the goal, it is the price paid for adventure – and sometimes that price is too high. Lee helps us see that managing risk, sometimes with tools or technology and sometimes by knowing when to say no, is the key to continuing to be able to pass through new doors.” – George Gray, George Washington University, co-author of Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in the World Around You
No comments:
Post a Comment