Halflives

Book excerpt: As a member of a prominent Salt Lake City family and a direct descendant of Mormon pioneer Brigham Young, Brooke Williams was born into a carefully scripted life. He would study hard, be involved with his church and community, and follow in the footsteps of three previous generations to work in the family business. And that is what he did -- at least at first. Yet despite his outward signs of success, Williams was not satisfied. His deep love of the outdoors and insatiable desire to experience wild nature made living the life expected of him an ongoing struggle. He escaped at every opportunity into wildness, deliberately seeking risky ski routes, long, lonely runs, and other outdoor adventures, from the deserts of Mexico to the waters off Alaska. Realizing he was drowning emotionally and unable to bring his "halflives" together, he grew increasingly frustrated as the gap between his two worlds expanded. Halflives is the story of Brooke Williams' personal quest to balance the expectations of family and society with the needs and desires of his heart. He identifies a balance we all must strike between our cultural obligations and the strong pull toward wildness that our evolutionary heritage exerts on the human psyche. Book jacket.