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A successful entry for Thomas Zigal’s writing life
Book Review
By Derryll White
Zigal, Thomas (1995). Into Thin Air.
This is the author’s first published novel, a very strong entry into the mystery genre. Kurt Muller, the lead character, is sheriff in Aspen, Colorado. He is the only successful member of the Rabid Skunks party, a hippie coalition of old Aspenites. Elected 10 years previous to the incidents described in the novel, Kurt is a hometown boy and brings all the flavour of the mining town turned exclusive resort community to the story.
There are many levels of history here – reformed hippy, caring father, tormented brother, rule breaker. Perhaps the one most germane and with strongest appeal is “native son.”
Author Zigal presents a strong and compelling picture of life at 10,000 feet, the home boys trying valiantly to adjust to the unlimited influence of extravagant money, celebrity status, drug culture and the personal impacts of the American Vietnam war. Nothing really stands up to all of these mounting pressures, but Kurt tries.
Thomas Zigal goes out of his way to develop and then communicate the need for family and all of the stumbling blocks inherent in that need. He does this well. They are feelings every reader can relate to.
Well written, ‘Into Thin Air’ takes the reader high into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and into a natural environment much like East Kootenay. One should think of Fernie 25 years ago. This is an enjoyable read and a very successful entry for Thomas Zigal into the writing life.
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Excerpts from the novel:
ASPEN GROWING UP – But they knew who they were. They were Americans. Theirs was a great rugged land of snow-capped peaks and sparkling streams and rich green forests of Douglas firs that towered in the sun. This was their birthright, and this was who they became. Tall, strong, sunburned youths, their playground the Elk Range and the Continental Divide. They took to the slopes in winter, and to the trout creeks late in spring.
AMERICA – The world was not the same place they had left to become soldiers. While one brother slogged through the bloody rice paddies of Asia and the other monitored radio transmissions at a long gray border coiled with razor wire, their country split apart. Great men were murdered, cities burned. Their rosy childhood was gone.
– Derryll White once wrote books (and just did again) but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
