Forget Me Not: A Memoir

Product Information

This book is a love story, a mountaineering story, an adventure story, a family story, a grief and healing story - all rolled into one. After Lowe died in 1999 during a Himalayan expedition with his friend Conrad Anker, she and Anker married, and he adopted the Lowe’s three children. Her involvement with Conrad Anker, Alex's best friend and also a world-renowned climber, is also addressed.

Her writing is luscious - you want to be lost in the romantic descriptions of the Montana mountains and wildlife. It's been a while since I couldn't put a book down, but this one took up two back-to-back evenings and I'm still thinking about it.

Lowe and the photographer ran down the mountain as the avalanche started, rather to the side as Anker did.

Jennifer Lowe-Anker achieves what she sets out to do - painting a portrait of her late first husband, Alex Lowe, in a way that ensures who he was is captured and never forgotten. The book offers a rare window onto the life of a high altitude mountaineer’s spouse, and of the devastation felt by those left behind. Above all, Jenny’s humility shines through in her remarkable ability to honor, respect and praise the people in her life. The first few chapters of this book are steeped in the early lives of Alex and Jennifer, whose life together wasn't always smooth. her Alex and my Jared are cut from the same cloth and perhaps are climbing together in the afterlife.

He was the Lance Armstrong of mountaineering, only taller and handsomer and happier, and he was the real deal.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Jennifer Lowe-Anker is an artist whose often whimsical paintings are rendered in vivid colour and rich texture inspired by her Montana upbringing.She was married to Alex Lowe until his death in 1999 who was widely regarded as one of the best climbers of his generation. In the tragic aftermath, with Anker grieving as much as the widowed Jennifer and her three fatherless children, the two adults fell in love.

So I guess this is more of a contemplation on Forget Me Not, a book I enjoyed immensely, and one that truly moved me. I am just over halfway done, and perhaps when I finish, I will have a better taste in my mouth for Alex, who this book is written for. As a reader, I felt strangely honored by Lowe-Anker's candor in so many respects, especially as she narrated when she first met and fell in love with Alex Lowe; on the other hand, I was a little surprised by some of the narrative obscurity towards the end of the book.At the same time I sensed what it would be like to be married to a person so absorbed in a dangerous sport/hobby. They travelled the world together, visiting various climbing locales in the United States and abroad. There's a little bit of peace it leaves in its wake, and I think it's all the more impressive for being so soft-footed. It seemed rather sudden, especially considering the fact that Conrad had a fiancée at the time of the accident, but he stepped in to take care of Jennifer and her boys, something she seemingly needed a great deal of with all the loss that she has dealt with in her life.