A Change in Altitude: A Novel

Rating the book was hard, because I want to give it five stars for the very vivid description of Africa in the 1970, told from the point of view of american expats. You meet many other expats and especially the british expats are giving the impression that colonialism is still alive and well even in the 70s. As far as the characters and the story I would give it only two stars. Margaret is a a surprisingly weak and remote main character and her husband comes across as uncaring,remote and cold. Why they married baffles me there seems to be no love between them. Other characters are unlikable too, except for the African 'servants' and Rafique the reporter friend. The story line is weird, especially the big catastrophic event on the first climb. Shreve did not manage to make me understand how all the characters reacted to the accident. The end was abrupt and left everything open, I had to listen twice to make sure I really didn't miss anything.

This was a good "read" - the author took one into the main character's mind and emotions very well and the description of the mountain was compelling. The vague ending was surprising but perhaps it was the only possible one.

The story is fair. It is not Schreve's best. The narrator's voice is all wrong for this story.