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Family Secrets…

Author:  Carine McCandless

wild truth cover (183x275)It was a long time ago, but when I read Into the Wild – Jon Krakauer’s 1996 international bestseller about the short, passionate life of Chris McCandless – I remember feeling completely baffled.  I couldn’t decide if the young man – who abandoned his family and died alone in the remote Alaskan wilderness in the summer of 1992 at the age of 24 – was more stupid, naïve or selfish.  Or maybe he was simply suicidal.  While his life story has proved inspirational for millions of readers – and viewers of the award-winning 2007 movie by Sean Penn – it was hard to fully make sense of the man’s life.  While it’s been a long time coming, Chris’ younger sister Carine McCandless has finally decided to tell her story, providing a more complete look at life in the McCandless household than the previous two works.  While her claim to be the person who knew Chris best is not disputable, The Wild Truth is sure to add plenty of fuel to the debate surrounding her brother that’s continued for over two decades.

Only twenty-one years old when informed of her beloved brother’s death, Carine felt both devastated and abandoned.  When she was approached by Krakauer a few months later, she agreed to help him tell Chris’ story, but only if he refrained from revealing many potentially embarrassing McCandless family details.   So Krakauer tip-toed around their father’s alcoholism and abusive behavior, as well as their mother’s enabling, which created an unequivocally toxic childhood environment for the two McCandless children.  He also didn’t reveal many details surrounding Chris and Carine’s six half-siblings, who lived nearby in the Washington DC suburbs with their father’s other wife.   Krakauer knew that withholding this kind of information would make Chris’ actions harder to understand, but he nevertheless helped keep Carine’s family secrets, as did Sean Penn ten years later.

The famous picture of Carine's brother, shortly before his death in Alaska.

The famous self-portrait of Carine’s brother, shortly before his death in Alaska.

But now, more than twenty years after Chris’ decaying body was found in an abandoned school bus, Carine has come forward, ready to tell her story of abuse.  Having survived marriages of her own and become a successful entrepreneur and mother, she wants to set the record straight.  She’s also given up on reconciling with either of her parents, who have gone out of their way to present their own version of Chris’ life to the public.

Of course, any memoir, especially one that involves the volatile topic of abuse, is going to present a one-sided view of events.  And while readers are going to have to decide for themselves, I think that Carine presents a thoroughly convincing story, countering many of her parent’s objections and obtaining the support of her half-siblings as well as Krakauer to help buttress her claims.  Her own personal saga is almost as moving as her brother’s even though she seldom ventures far from home.  While she undoubtedly has an agenda, she gives her parents plenty of opportunities to reform, as her decades of silence attest.

Providing a wealth of previously unrevealed information about one of the most enigmatic figures of the 1990s, The Wild Truth is a skillfully and honestly written memoir that’s nearly as riveting as the biographical works that preceded it.  Anyone who found inspiration in the adventures of “Alexander Supertramp” is sure to find this latest installment intriguing.  Recommended.

— D. Driftless

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