Letters
Lost in the wild
Jon Krakauer's "Death of an Innocent" was thoroughly researched and compassionately written--the best case study of an enigmatic personality I've read. The world's Chris McCandlesses will always come and go in mystery.

Tom Coleman
Denver, Colorado

Ill-advised solo jaunts into the wilderness might be temporary cure for fits of middle-class angst, but there's nothing romantic about being cold, scared, hungry, and alone. Unfortunately, age will never be able to convince youth of this.

Wade Anderson
Birmingham, Alabama

I lost my college boyfriend to an unexplainable death in Sitka, Alaska. He, too, had sought simplicity and adventure in the outdoors and somehow fell a thousand feet off a cliff while his journal, clothes, and food remained above. Was it suicide? Foolishness? These explanations seem insufficient, since his journal, like McCandless's, evoked a sense of inner peace. It's comforting to know that others also struggle with the questions left by tragic early deaths.

Deborah Putnam
Boston, Massachusetts

Psychologists will no doubt conclude that McCandless suffered from a serious mental illness to which they will attach some important clinical name. To most of the rest of us, any guy who calls himself Alexander Supertramp, heads out into a desolate wilderness with no food or maps, and includes a line from a Roger Miller ditty in his declaration of independence is simply a kook.

Bob Moulder
New York, New York