Kate Nicholson

Interview: BBC Radio 6 - 3rd November 2024

(listen from 2hrs in)

 

 

Talks: Behind Everest - Ruth Mallory’s Story

Held at  the Royal Geographical Society on 25th March

 

 

Podcast: Behind Everest July 2024

 

 

From Everest's Historians

Robert MacFarlane Author of Mountains of the Mind

‘[Ruth] is in the shadow when she should share the light. She lost [George] towards death four times; once to war and three times to the mountain. To know only George’s side of things, to see only through his eyes and those of the men who accompanied him, is to see an incomplete Everest, a partial myth, and to further confirm the heroic-tragic male mountaineering/exploration paradigm.’

Wade Davis

Author of Into The Silence

‘The key to George Mallory is his beloved wife Ruth, and yet until now Ruth has remained a great mystery. Kate Nicholson’s biography is both vital and long overdue ...’

Author of Wildest Dream

‘You have unearthed some wonderful, compelling material. I was deeply impressed with all you have found out and you have brought life and meaning to a powerful and important character ...’

Sarah Wheeler

‘a photograph of George Mallory naked in the Himalayan foothills with his rucksack on his back – I do not think one could ever tire of these images.’

‘Enthralling biography’ 

 

'Other biographies have described Ruth before, but none have placed her

front and centre, as Nicholson does. She portrays Ruth with insight and

understanding, as well as locating her in the context of the times, from the arts

and political movements she espoused to the impact of the First World War.

Even in such a crowded biographical space, Nicholson has disinterred

new documents and photographs, and has conducted the first interviews

with descendants of key figures from Ruth’s life. Nicholson says she has

used ‘narrative non-fiction techniques’ to immerse the reader in Ruth’s life

and they work to great effect. The book has a radical structure, moving be-

tween historical scenes and the present day, as Nicholson relates how she

placed herself in Ruth’s position, escorting the reader around her homes,

learning to climb so that she can follow Ruth’s routes. The outcome is an

absorbing mix of research and imagination, a meta exercise in double em-

pathy: we feel what Nicholson feels and from that extrapolate to Ruth’s

feelings too.’ 

 

'Nicholson hooks her readers into her quest for the whole Ruth, engaging them in her hopes and fears, offering a new take on her relationship with George, and presenting her as a full person in her own right: no longer behind, as intimated by the book’s title, but centre stage.'

 

Alpine Journal 2024 review by Peter Gillman, Co author of 'Wildest Dream’.

“... the ground-breaking Everest book that explores what it is like to stay behind, for a very able partner, in a different age to ours. Kate Nicholson’s ‘Behind Everest’ tells the story of Ruth Turner, ahem, Mallory, (as in the wife of George) through many previously unseen letters. The judges applaud Nicholson for achieving the virtually impossible feat of taking the drowned-out voice of this woman (amidst the bluster of male voices), and making it seem strangely modern.”

 

Boardman Tasker, Mountain Literature Award Shortlist 2024, Paul Pritchard