First published 2025
Norman Ollestad knows danger. The eleven-year-old California sixth grader surfs massive waves at Topanga Beach and skis through blizzards, pushed by his thrill-seeking father who insists "anything's possible." But when their small plane gets swallowed by a snowstorm and crashes into the San Gabriel Mountains, Norman faces something beyond any previous adventure. Trapped eight thousand feet above sea level with deadly consequences around him, Norman drifts in and out of consciousness. Voices and memories from his past flood back as he confronts the mountain wilderness alone. He must decide how to survive in conditions that test every lesson his father taught him. This story explores the complicated relationship between a boy and the parent who shaped him through extreme experiences. Norman's fight for survival becomes a reckoning with fear, family, and the forces that make us who we are.
Genres: survival, adventure, biographical-fiction, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: coming-of-age, father-son-relationship
Setting: California, San Gabriel Mountains, Topanga Beach
Period: 20th-century
247 pages · Kindle Edition · Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)