Native Air - book review
- Friday 9th February 2024
By Jonathan Howland Green Writers Press £25
I must confess to generally not being a lover of climbing/mountaineering fiction as it far too often falls back on stereotypes both of characters and situations. There are, of course, exceptions: the novels of Roger Hubank, particularly North Wall, Hazard’s Way, and The Way of the Cuillin are excellent, while M John Harrison’s Climbers explores the often strange nature of climbers without really being about the activity itself, albeit with a compassionate eye and a real sense of the Thatcher years in northern England.
However, with Native Air, Jonathan Howland has at last produced the Great American climbing novel. Howland lives in San Francisco and is a very capable climber himself and his ability to describe the personal stresses and pains of Big Wall climbing is what makes the book so powerful and such a satisfying read.
In his debut novel, the author captures the austere beauty and high exposure of mountain adventure and the intensity of the lives of the two main characters. The book opens in the mid-1980s with Joe, the narrator, climbing mostly in the shadow of his gifted and driven partner, Pete. The joys and strains of their close friendship from the first half of the book as they climb throughout the west. In the second half of the book, obsession, grief, love and repair come into sharp focus when Pete’s grown son Will persuades Joe back into climbing and to a confrontation with his past life.
The book skilfully links the physical and often painful action in the vertical, with the ongoing life events of the main characters as they age. There is a tenderness and humanity in the author’s handling of obsession and its impact on the lives of others nearby. At the same time, the descriptions of the landscape and mountains are beautifully crafted and make you yearn for these places yourself. To quote climber-author Dan Duane: “Native Air belongs on the bookshelf of anyone whose heart registers the beauty and danger of exposure.”
This book won the 2022 Grand Prize in the Poetry & Fiction category at the Banff Mountain Festival. Along with Roger Hubank’s Hazard’s Way, I think this is the finest novel yet written about climbing and about those drawn to its often harsh demands.