Into the Wild Jon Krakauer

About the Author Jon Krakauer was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1954. His family moved to Corvallis, Oregon, when he was two. When he was eight years old, his father took him to climb one of Oregon's ten-thousand-foot peaks sparking Krakauer's lifelong obsession with mountaineering.

About the Author . . . Krakauer received a degree in environmental studies from Hampshire College and worked as a carpenter and a commercial fisherman to support his climbing. In 1983 Krakauer quit his job as foreman of a house-building crew to concentrate on his writing career.

About the Author Krakauer’s writing career picked up when he began working Outside magazine, but he has written for many other publications including The New York Times. He has written several novels, the most acclaimed being Into Thin Air, an account of his successful yet disastrous climb of Mount Everest

The Book Into the Wild was published in 1996 and spent two years on the NYT Bestseller List He wrote the book after the success and great popularity of his Outside article on Christopher McCandless published in the January 1993 issue.

The Krakauer-McCandless Connection Krakauer saw a lot of connections between Chris and himself from their interests, to their world views, to their family lives. In 1996 Krakauer said, “I identify with him a lot, and it's a sad story. I went back to the bus for the third time last September. I've become quite good friends with his family, we have sort of this weird bond” (Random House).

About “Into the Wild” In 1992, a party of moose hunters found the decomposing body of a young man in the Alaskan wilderness. Outside magazine asked Krakauer to write about this young man, Chris McCandless, a bright idealist from Washington, D.C. Many readers thought McCandless was a reckless fool; others sympathized with his spiritual quest. Krakauer saw a lot of himself in McCandless. A year after the article was published, Krakauer couldn't get McCandless out of his mind and decided to write Into the Wild, Krakauer's first bestseller.

“Into the Wild” Into the Wild is a nonfiction, full-length text by Jon Krakauer. Published in 1996, it is based on an article Krakauer wrote in Outside Magazine about Christopher McCandless, a young college graduate who went off to Alaska and died in the woods. Because Krakauer’s article drew a huge amount of mail to the magazine, he decided to write a book about this interesting character.

More about “Into the Wild”. . . Chris McCandless, the story’s main character, is a young, idealistic guy who forms a personal philosophy based on transcendental thought. McCandless genuinely loved the outdoors and wanted to live in the world without all the trappings of money and his middle-class upbringing. Into the Wild is, in a way, a mystery story. We’re unsure as to why he rejects his family, why he’s so angry with them, and why he chooses to head for Alaska.

Other Books by Krakauer On May 10, 1996, Krakauer climbed Mount Everest with an expedition of twenty-three people. An afternoon blizzard hit the peak, and eight people lost their lives. Into Thin Air, his book on the experience, was on the bestseller list for two years and in 1998 Krakauer used some of the royalties to establish the Everest '96 Memorial Fund. The book was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.