Change in Altitude (Shreve)

A Change in Altitude 
Anita Shreve, 2009
Little, Brown & Co.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316020718


Summary
Margaret and Patrick have been married just a few months when they set off on what they hope will be a great adventure-a year living in Kenya. Margaret quickly realizes there is a great deal she doesn't know about the complex mores of her new home, and about her own husband.

A British couple invites the newlyweds to join on a climbing expedition to Mount Kenya, and they eagerly agree. But during their harrowing ascent, a horrific accident occurs. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Margaret struggles to understand what happened on the mountain and how these events have transformed her and her marriage, perhaps forever.

A Change in Altitude illuminates the inner landscape of a couple, the irrevocable impact of tragedy, and the elusive nature of forgiveness. With stunning language and striking emotional intensity, Anita Shreve transports us to the exotic panoramas of Africa and into the core of our most intimate relationships. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1946
• Raised—Dedham, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A. Tufts University
• Awards—PEN/L.L. Winship Award; O. Henry Prize
• Currently—lives in Longmeadow, Massachusetts


Anita Shreve is the acclaimed author of nearly 20 books—including two works of nonfiction and 17 of fiction. Her novels include, most recently, Stella Bain (2013), as well as The Weight of Water (1997), a finalist for England's Orange prize; The Pilot's Wife (1998), a selection of Oprah's Book Club; All He Even Wanted (2003), Body Surfing (2007); Testimony (2008); A Change in Altitude (2010). She lives in Massachusetts. (From the publisher.)

More
For many readers, the appeal of Anita Shreve’s novels is their ability to combine all of the escapist elements of a good beach read with the kind of thoughtful complexity not generally associated with romantic fiction. Shreve’s books are loaded with enough adultery, eroticism, and passion to make anyone keep flipping the pages, but the writer whom People magazine once dubbed a “master storyteller” is also concerned with the complexities of her characters’ motivations, relationships, and lives.

Shreve’s novels draw on her diverse experiences as a teacher and journalist: she began writing fiction while teaching high school, and was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1975 for her story, "Past the Island, Drifting." She then spent several years working as a journalist in Africa, and later returned to the States to raise her children. In the 1980s, she wrote about women’s issues, which resulted in two nonfiction books—Remaking Motherhood and Women Together, Women Alone—before breaking into mainstream fiction with Eden Close in 1989.

This interest in women’s lives—their struggles and success, families and friendships—informs all of Shreve’s fiction. The combination of her journalist’s eye for detail and her literary ear for the telling turn of phrase mean that Shreve can spin a story that is dense, atmospheric, and believable. Shreve incorporates the pull of the sea—the inexorable tides, the unpredictable surf—into her characters’ lives the way Willa Cather worked the beauty and wildness of the Midwestern plains into her fiction. In Fortune’s Rocks and The Weight of Water, the sea becomes a character itself, evocative and ultimately consuming. In Sea Glass, Shreve takes the metaphor as far as she can, where characters are tested again and again, only to emerge stronger by surviving the ravages of life.

A domestic sensualist, Shreve makes use of the emblems of household life to a high degree, letting a home tell its stories just as much as its inhabitants do, and even recycling the same house through different books and periods of time, giving it a sort of palimpsest effect, in which old stories burn through the newer ones, creating a historical montage. "A house with any kind of age will have dozens of stories to tell," she says. "I suppose if a novelist could live long enough, one could base an entire oeuvre on the lives that weave in and out of an antique house."

Shreve’s work is sometimes categorized as "women’s fiction," because of her focus on women’s sensibilties and plights. But her evocative and precise language and imagery take her beyond category fiction, and moderate the vein of sentimen-tality which threads through her books. Moreover, her kaleidoscopic view of history, her iron grip on the details and detritus of 19th-century life (which she sometimes inter-sperses with a 20th-century story), and her uncanny ability to replicate 19th-century dialogue without sounding fusty or fussy, make for novels that that are always absorbing and often riveting. If she has a flaw, it is that her imagery is sometimes too cinematic, but one can hardly fault her for that: after all, the call of Hollywood is surely as strong as the call of the sea for a writer as talented as Shreve. (Adapted from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Shreve, who worked in Kenya as a journalist early in her career, returns to that country in her slow latest, the story of a photojournalist and her doctor husband, whose temporary relocation abroad goes sour. The year-long research trip is an opportunity for Patrick, but leaves Margaret floundering in colonialist culture shock, feeling like “an actor in a play someone British had written for a previous generation.” When a climbing trip to Mt. Kenya goes fatally wrong, Margaret's role in the tragedy drives a quiet wedge between the couple. Compounding those stressors are multiple robberies and adulterous temptations, as well as Margaret's freelance work for a “controversial” newspaper. Written in a strangely emotionless third person, the novel is stuffed with travelogues and vignettes of privileged expatriate life, including the chestnut of Margaret feeling very guilty about being given a rug she admires. While some of these moments aren't bad, the scant dramatic tension and direct-to-video plot make this a slog.
Publishers Weekly


Margaret and Patrick are 28-year-old Bostonians living in Kenya in 1977. He's a doctor researching tropical diseases, while she dabbles in photography. They live in the guest house of Brits Arthur and Diana. An impulsive plan to climb to the top of Mount Kenya elicits varied responses from the group, which eventually will include a Swiss couple as well. While most see a challenge, if a mild one, Margaret is terrified, scrambling for a way to back out. Ultimately, tragedy strikes, and everyone, including Patrick, looks to Margaret as its cause. The country's race relations contribute to Margaret's feelings of remorse, pushing her to find a job and perhaps a new love. Verdict: The usual pinpoint precision of Shreve's (Testimony) prose is not in evidence here, as readers must work to discover the novel's time frame, and accusations of Margaret's complicity in the accident seem out of proportion, as does her sense of guilt. People who might consider an excursion to Mount Kenya will undoubtedly cancel their airfare and buy a new armchair instead. Fans will demand this one, though. —Bette-Lee Fox
Library Journal


Shreve sends a young American couple up Mt. Kenya, with disastrous consequences for their marriage. Margaret and Patrick have been in Nairobi for three months. He came to pursue research in tropical diseases while offering his services as a doctor in free clinics; she was bored with her job at a Boston alternative weekly and hopes to find more interesting photography opportunities in Africa. Neither is an experienced climber, nor do they especially like their landlords, Arthur and Diana, who suggest the expedition. But they go along anyway, and it's athletic Diana who falls to her death. Is Margaret to blame because Diana was exasperated by her slowness and enraged by Arthur's attentions to the younger woman? Patrick thinks so and says so to his wife; their relationship is on shaky ground for the remainder of the story. It's not clear precisely what Shreve intends to convey in her tale. She unsparingly depicts the poverty and corruption of late-1970s Kenya and sends Margaret to work at a reforming newspaper whose editor is eventually arrested, but politics are not a central concern. Margaret, the point-of-view character, is a sensitive and thoughtful observer who can't seem to take hold of her life. Patrick will strike most readers as cold and judgmental from the start; it's hard to understand what Margaret ever saw in him, and her attraction to a reporter at the Kenya Morning Tribune isn't much more compelling. The second climb up Mt. Kenya, taken a year after the first, does not in the least meet Patrick's goal of expunging the "deadly silence" and "devastating mistrust" that have enveloped the couple, but it does restore Margaret's self-respect and make clearthe state of their marriage. Commendably tough-minded and unsentimental, but not very engaging.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions 
1. How would you interpret the novel’s title? Does the concept of altitude have significance in the story beyond its literal meaning?

2. During the drive to Mt. Kenya, Margaret and Patrick talk about whether photography detaches you from the present or helps you immerse yourself in it more fully (75). In your own life, do you find that taking photographs enriches experiences or prevents you from being fully in the moment?

3. When Diana brings Adhiambo to stay with Patrick and Margaret for the night, they disagree about how best to deal with the situation. Margaret seems more concerned about Adhiambo’s emotional well-being, while Patrick focuses on her physical state. In what way do their differing perspectives reflect other aspects of their characters? Do you think Adhiambo would have been better off if Margaret and Patrick had taken her to the hospital that night?

4. Throughout the novel, Margaret is struck by the way Kenyan characters use the phrase “Just all right” (67, 189, 246, 303). How would you interpret the meaning of this phrase? Why is it so surprising to Margaret?

5. How culpable is Margaret in what happens on the mountain? To what extent does the blame fall on others involved in the climb? Should a person be held responsible for the unintended consequences of her actions (124)?

6. Is Patrick right to confront Margaret about what happened on the mountain? Margaret argues that if he loves her and intends to stay with her, he should not have told her his opinion, while Patrick believes it is most important to be honest (125). What do you think is most important in a relationship, total honesty or sensitivity to the other’s feelings?

7. Why do you think Margaret feels so strongly about taking the photograph of the leopard? Are there parallels between this action and Diana’s behavior on the glacier? Have you ever put yourself in danger because of a momentary impulse? What do you think motivates actions of this kind?

8. What is your definition of infidelity? Does Margaret’s relationship with Rafiq constitute unfaithfulness to Patrick? Is there such a thing as emotional infidelity or is only physical cheating really cheating?

9. How much of a marriage’s success or failure do you think can be attributed to the love between husband and wife, and how much to external factors, such as jobs, finances, location, and other people? Patrick says, “I think couples need projects to keep them together” (271). Is he correct that a couple must put in effort to make their marriage work?

10. If the accident on the mountain had never occurred, do you think Margaret and Patrick’s relationship would have evolved differently? Would anything more have happened between Arthur and Margaret? Between Rafiq and Margaret?

11. Imagine Margaret and Patrick thirty years after the end of A Change in Altitude, looking back on their life in Africa. How do you think each of them would describe the trajectory of their relationship during this time?

12. Describe your response to the novel’s ending. Did you find it sad? Uplifting? Did you feel that things had worked out for the best?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page (summary)