(Questions about the writer) Is this author knowledgeable? Smart? Successful?

Krakauer is a world famous mountain climber and author: yes he is successful on many levels. In January 1993, Jon Krakauer published an article in Outside magazine about the death of Chris McCandless, a young Emory graduate who had donated all of his money to charity, gotten rid of all his belongings, changed his name, and, in April 1992, after two years of itinerant living, walked alone into the Alaskan wilderness with few supplies, intending to live off of the land. His body was found about four months later, in September 1992.

The article in Outside magazine garnered a great deal of attention, and Krakauer found himself obsessed with the question of what led McCandless to this extreme end. He also saw many parallels between McCandless’s personality and behavior, and his own as a younger man. He thus decided to do significantly more research and to make a book out of the tale, and spent nearly three years researching the story in an effort to discover what exactly happened to McCandless.