Author's Note Summary and Analysis

In April of 1992, a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless hitchhiked to Alaska and entered the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later, a party of hunters found his body. Outside magazine subsequently asked Jon Krakauer, the author of Into the Wild, to write a story about the young man's life and death. In researching the story, Krakauer learned that McCandless hailed from an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C. and had graduated with honors from Emory University. Shortly after graduating, McCandless gave away his entire savings to charity, abandoned his possessions, and began living on the margins of society as a drifter and wilderness explorer.

Krakauer's article was published in Outside magazine in January of 1993, but his fascination with McCandless did not end there. Krakauer identifies with McCandless's attraction to nature and to high-risk activities, and also...