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Author Mark Detsky will be reading from his new book on Saturday from 5:30-7 p.m. at Ole Man Berkins, located at 326 S. Main St. in Breck.
How timely that a former Breckenridge ski bum turned environmental lawyer should spin a yarn about Wall Street skullduggery, genetically engineered timber, spiritual self-help and canyon country.
Only Boulder’s Mark Detsky could make these improbable bedfellows come together in a tale that travels from Portland, Ore., to New York City, from Summit County to the canyons of the Gunnison River and ultimately to the Sea of Cortez. As a self-confessed river rat, backcountry trekker, diver and festivarian — born and raised in New York— Detsky is an able guide himself.
Any good story must have a central conflict. In “As Fast as it is Gone” there are several, confidently furthering several storylines into a nice weave which ultimately leads the reader to question him/herself about what is really important in life.
Protagonist David Riggs is an up-and-coming young executive with Commax Timber in Portland, yet the novel opens in his hospital room as he encounters Death for the first time. Momentarily crippled by Guillan Barre syndrome and drowning in anxiety, Riggs is told by Death, “You are dying, but you are not dead yet.”
While he has been climbing the corporate ladder, Riggs’ decidedly anti-corporate wife has been attending a spiritual awakening class entitled “Living Deliberately.”
Led by a large Fijian who has lived round the world in and through conflict, emerging happy and ready to share and help heal, the class has finally attracted its biggest skeptic, David Riggs. Only through the wisdom of teacher Merl Piping and the distilled knowledge of his wife Sara (not to mention her loving and chiding) does Riggs realize that not only is a breakthrough necessary, but actually possible.
Just as the timber industry is about to push Riggs over the edge into corporate malfeasance, and just as the continued symptoms of Guillan Barre continue to weaken his physical body and mental resolve, Riggs manages to claw his way out of the concrete jungle and back to Summit County, where he reconnects with a college pal.
For Detsky’s take on Breckenridge and the surrounding backwoods alone, this is a fun read. When was your last Fourteener? Were you in tip-top shape? Riggs’ college pal relinquishes his guide hat atop Grey’s peak in a gathering storm as he realizes his friend will not turn back from the summit just for a little lightning.
Detsky juxtaposes these characters deftly through character development and dialogue. Take Julien Crenshaw, Riggs’ boss and possible mentor. He’s high-strung, overweight, in the throes of early-onset cardiac problems, but he’s able to lure Riggs into an abyss of a nine-figure Wall Street scheme involving number-juggling and accounting tricks.
The detailed financial mess in “As Fast as it is Gone” doesn’t actually deal with massive clearcuts and illegal land swaps so much as it does with “theoretical trees.”
On the heels of stem cell research and stiffer regulations on organic farming and genetic engineering, the fictitious “genetic tree” technology on which a $500 million investment hangs, is nowhere near reality. It’s a supposition, much like life can be a supposition if you take it for granted or abuse it.
Detsky has lived long enough to know what it takes to find direction, how important it is to lose it from time to time, and how to rely on yourself to regain it.
The only way David Riggs is going to climb out of this abyss is by escaping. Not only will he need a crash course in GPS-location, but he needs to know that his wife is behind him, that their love is way more important than money (Or is it? Or is it on the same level? Maybe before...), and he really needs to know that there is another “him” who can decide that the only way to live is to “live deliberately.”
This journey takes him to Portland then back to Colorado, to the backcountry which will test every aspect of his resolve.
Comparisons are inevitable, but to describe this book is to describe the sort of thrill I got reading Edward Abbey for the first time — just for the places he put me. Detsky’s array of various and colorful characters, from the steely CEO Charles Butler to Merl the jolly Fijian guru to Wild Bill and The Tracker from Colorado, are remindful of the wacky cast of characters we find in John Nichols’ “Milagro Beanfield War” or Abbey’s “Monkeywrench Gang.”
Through this cast, the reader wants to jump ahead and find out who did what to whom next ... yet stay anchored in the Portland mist or the Indian summer afternoon on a river near Breckenridge.
What’s important to you? Look around. Breckenridge is near buildout. Massive corporate-funded slopeside condo developments are beginning to take shape. Can you still get out of yourself when you need to? Is it still attainable adjacent to the busiest ski area in the country? I think it is, but now more than ever, you have to go within yourself to lighten up and find the motivation to regain the spark. In the author’s words, if you’re not “living deliberately,” then you’re not truly living.
Only Boulder’s Mark Detsky could make these improbable bedfellows come together in a tale that travels from Portland, Ore., to New York City, from Summit County to the canyons of the Gunnison River and ultimately to the Sea of Cortez. As a self-confessed river rat, backcountry trekker, diver and festivarian — born and raised in New York— Detsky is an able guide himself.
Any good story must have a central conflict. In “As Fast as it is Gone” there are several, confidently furthering several storylines into a nice weave which ultimately leads the reader to question him/herself about what is really important in life.
Protagonist David Riggs is an up-and-coming young executive with Commax Timber in Portland, yet the novel opens in his hospital room as he encounters Death for the first time. Momentarily crippled by Guillan Barre syndrome and drowning in anxiety, Riggs is told by Death, “You are dying, but you are not dead yet.”
While he has been climbing the corporate ladder, Riggs’ decidedly anti-corporate wife has been attending a spiritual awakening class entitled “Living Deliberately.”
Led by a large Fijian who has lived round the world in and through conflict, emerging happy and ready to share and help heal, the class has finally attracted its biggest skeptic, David Riggs. Only through the wisdom of teacher Merl Piping and the distilled knowledge of his wife Sara (not to mention her loving and chiding) does Riggs realize that not only is a breakthrough necessary, but actually possible.
Just as the timber industry is about to push Riggs over the edge into corporate malfeasance, and just as the continued symptoms of Guillan Barre continue to weaken his physical body and mental resolve, Riggs manages to claw his way out of the concrete jungle and back to Summit County, where he reconnects with a college pal.
For Detsky’s take on Breckenridge and the surrounding backwoods alone, this is a fun read. When was your last Fourteener? Were you in tip-top shape? Riggs’ college pal relinquishes his guide hat atop Grey’s peak in a gathering storm as he realizes his friend will not turn back from the summit just for a little lightning.
Detsky juxtaposes these characters deftly through character development and dialogue. Take Julien Crenshaw, Riggs’ boss and possible mentor. He’s high-strung, overweight, in the throes of early-onset cardiac problems, but he’s able to lure Riggs into an abyss of a nine-figure Wall Street scheme involving number-juggling and accounting tricks.
The detailed financial mess in “As Fast as it is Gone” doesn’t actually deal with massive clearcuts and illegal land swaps so much as it does with “theoretical trees.”
On the heels of stem cell research and stiffer regulations on organic farming and genetic engineering, the fictitious “genetic tree” technology on which a $500 million investment hangs, is nowhere near reality. It’s a supposition, much like life can be a supposition if you take it for granted or abuse it.
Detsky has lived long enough to know what it takes to find direction, how important it is to lose it from time to time, and how to rely on yourself to regain it.
The only way David Riggs is going to climb out of this abyss is by escaping. Not only will he need a crash course in GPS-location, but he needs to know that his wife is behind him, that their love is way more important than money (Or is it? Or is it on the same level? Maybe before...), and he really needs to know that there is another “him” who can decide that the only way to live is to “live deliberately.”
This journey takes him to Portland then back to Colorado, to the backcountry which will test every aspect of his resolve.
Comparisons are inevitable, but to describe this book is to describe the sort of thrill I got reading Edward Abbey for the first time — just for the places he put me. Detsky’s array of various and colorful characters, from the steely CEO Charles Butler to Merl the jolly Fijian guru to Wild Bill and The Tracker from Colorado, are remindful of the wacky cast of characters we find in John Nichols’ “Milagro Beanfield War” or Abbey’s “Monkeywrench Gang.”
Through this cast, the reader wants to jump ahead and find out who did what to whom next ... yet stay anchored in the Portland mist or the Indian summer afternoon on a river near Breckenridge.
What’s important to you? Look around. Breckenridge is near buildout. Massive corporate-funded slopeside condo developments are beginning to take shape. Can you still get out of yourself when you need to? Is it still attainable adjacent to the busiest ski area in the country? I think it is, but now more than ever, you have to go within yourself to lighten up and find the motivation to regain the spark. In the author’s words, if you’re not “living deliberately,” then you’re not truly living.
