Altitude Sickness

“Altitude Sickness” is the third in a trilogy of nonfiction books in which Julavits attempts to redefine “memoir” as an act of personal, philosophical, and ideological investigation. The first book, The Folded Clock, concerned questions of time; the second, Directions to Myself, of disorientation. In “Altitude Sickness,” Julavits asks how humans interact with nature as land artists, tourists, educators, cultural critics, and adventurers. The book leans on several pillars: recently discovered neurological findings that a person’s life does, in fact, “flash before their eyes” thirty seconds before death; the joint suicide of an old couple on the Maine peninsula where she lives, and the letter they wrote to the local paper explaining their reasons; a compilation of American avalanche accidents called “The Snowy Torrents”; and, finally, she writes, “the parallels I can’t help but see with formerly stable facets of my natural world that are changing and vanishing before my eyes.” In “Altitude Sickness,” Julavits asks if people will develop more socially and legally acceptable ways to die, especially given the looming threat of human mass-extinction. Is it possible to determine what we will see during the end-of-life “flash,” and might new rituals emerge that the dying can arrange and attend?