Harley Rustad

I'm finding it hard to encapsulate how I felt about this book, even weeks after I read it.

Lost in the Valley of Death is ostensibly about Justin Alexander Shetler, a minor Insta celebrity within the outdoor adventurer niche. I had never heard of Justin before this book - a quirk of the internet being that a popular figure in one corner is unheard of in others - but I ended it feeling that the world is a slightly less friendly place without him.

The first half of the book vacillates between explaining the history of India as a popular travel destination and Justin's background as a child and young man. I found the information on India Syndrome and the lost hikers that preceded Justin to be really interesting and compelling. The author did a really good job of showing the larger picture that Justin's disappearance slotted into.

Harley Rustad paints an in-depth portrait of Justin, lovingly rendered, except for one thing. 60% through the book, Rustad drops a chapter that shifted things dramatically for me as a reader and it rapidly dropped Rustad in my esteem. Justin was sexually abused by his adult male babysitter as a child and after telling his parents, was stalked by this man; he followed Justin to various houses the family moved to escape him. Justin's parents breaking up and his mother moving Justin and herself states away was mentioned many times in previous chapters, with Rustad going in depth into how lost and isolated Justin felt. Yet Rustad didn't seem to think that this was pertinent information about the parents' marriage, why moving so many times was necessary, why his mother moved across country. This chapter then tells us that when Justin was 15 he was sexually assaulted by another adult man. These are noted like they are minor events, only worthy of a single mention, barely worthy of consideration as part of Jason's deep desire to find peace.

Suddenly the fact that Justin became estranged from his father in 2006 after his father's conviction for sexual battery made a lot more sense. When I read the acknowledgments, the author thanks Justin's father profusely, and while his father certainly should have been interviewed, I felt as if the author had been so very light on those topics were both because he didn't want to alienate Justin's sex-offender father by making clear how permanent the damage from sexual abuse is. Perhaps I'm being too harsh and it's because he simply didn't feel like he could properly articulate how such trauma has a profound and lasting effect on the life of the victim and their loved ones. For me, this was a huge detraction in what was an otherwise thoughtful, contemplative look at an earnest and intense man's search for inner peace.… (mehr)

This story is going to haunt me for some time. Very well done with actual follow-in-the-footsteps research. This young man was lost in the valley of death, really just lost overall. Searching for something mostly and not really someone to fill a giant hole and void. It wasn't till 3/4 the way in that the ah-ha moment happened which explained so much of Justin's story. He had many adventures and pushed himself to his limits, but for what? He was a person who could not settle and that to me is just not peace. Sad story in many ways but he touched a lot of people and helped and gave hope to so many.… (mehr)