A Stance Of Wonder: Literary, Novel with climbling

A Stance of Wonder is an account of a life, is an exploration of life in mountains, of sport, love, friendship and art. Conrad Flowers is born in a mountain valley, moves to the grandeur of the eastern slopes of California's Sierra, then to the heart of this range of light. In the narrator's pursuit to understand Conrad's visionary approach to rock climbing, in his attempts to reconcile Conrad's foibles as well as Conrad's profound skills, the narrator-cum-biographer, comes to grasp himself anew. The heights of the Rockies, the bars and fields of Thailand, the jumbled peaks of the Himalaya backdrop struggles to love, while remaining true to a path of self fulfillment and to the kinship of soul and nature.

Mark Rodell started rock climbing in 1970 and continued to climb until 1998. During his active years his involvement in mountain sports expanded to include peak climbing and ski mountaineering. He was a mountain guide and was involved in early American Mountain Guide Association (A.M.G.A.) activities. He was awarded a fellowship to attend Syracuse University’s Creative Writing program. For the past seventeen years he has lived in Asia, teaching in Nepal and now Thailand at Mahidol University. A Stance of Wonder is his second novel.