On why she chose to focus on George's wife Ruth George was just so charismatic, you know, he wrote terrible poetry and he painted and he was an athlete and he studied history and he just sort of did everything and did all of it quite well, so it was hard not to get swept up by him.' He's ridiculously good-looking, or was ridiculously good-looking. 'And I just thought, like, 'Why on earth would you do that?' And under, you know, it's terrible circumstances even now, but in tweeds, and with heavy equipment - and so I started reading up sort of everything I could and pretty quickly became obsessed with George Mallory and I would joke around with friends at the time that if it was possible to be in love with a man who'd been dead for 80-some odd years then I probably was. Rideout joins NPR's Rachel Martin to discuss George's good looks, Ruth's gutsiness, and why, as a non-mountaineer, she became fascinated with Everest. But Rideout's tale also looks beyond the famous ice axes and oxygen tanks to tell another, more personal story: the heart-wrenching experience of Ruth waiting at home for word from her husband. Did the dashing young mountaineer manage to reach the summit of Mount Everest, making him the first man to ever do so? Or did he and his climbing partner, Sandy Irvine, perish heart-breakingly close to their unfulfilled goal?Ībove All Things, Tanis Rideout's debut novel about Mallory and his wife, Ruth, tells the thrilling story of the two men's famously ill-fated attempt to conquer Everest, and presents a how-it-might-have-happened of their unknown last climb.

George Mallory's final moments remain a haunting, hotly-disputed mystery.

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