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From a drunken housewife who barely escapes being caught in adultery to the author's soul-stirring encounter with one of the earth's last scenes of natural splendor, Going to Extremes succeeds in encompassing the surreal qualities and mind-bending contradictions of Alaska today. What Joe McGinniss found on his extraordinary odyssey was a world of stark contrasts. He introduces us to the people-from pot-smoking high-school principals to TV-watching Eskimos-and their problems: rampant drinking, divorce, human disintegration, and the oil-inspired greed and waste. And he recaptures both the power and the beauty of a land still untamed and undefiled, and the endurance of a spirit of independence and adventure that finds Alaska its natural home. A deeply moving, personal book, in turns wry, witty, cutting and bedazzling, Going to Extremes is, quite simply, a thoroughly rewarding experience.… (more)
User reviews
This book was published in 1980, just after the completion of the Pipeline, and much of the focus in the book is directed at
Joe McGinness spent a year (I think) travelling all over this large, strange state. He visited all of the major cities, many of the small towns, and even took a good long hike through the Brooks Range. What I really liked about this book was that he took on everything -- this wasn't about just the Pipeline, or about how cold it is, or how beautiful --he spent time in so many different places, finding all of their individual quirks. It's the first book I've read that manages to get so in depth about so many different aspects of life in Alaska.
I was bothered by the not-always-so-subtle Us and Them attitude when it came to the native people (still lumped into a single group called Eskimos at that time). While Mr McGinness described overt racial tension in Barrow, his own impressions were apparent in his descriptions of bars full of drunken Eskimos and troublemakers, and about their inability to handle their new-found Pipeline wealth. This book is clearly about the White Man's Alaska. I'm troubled by this.
All in all I found this to be a well-written and never boring travelogue -- better than average, actually. The historical perspective adds not just a little interest to the whole. I recommend this book to any fellow Alaskaphile.