Publisher's Synopsis
When we say "Shangrila"...we think of a place we step into and find happiness. Usually it's a personal thing...and the rest of the world be damned. But if we want it to be there for everyone, it probably will have at least two conditions, that of "proper justice", which attends solely to man's actions, acknowledging the innocence at his center...and that of a person capable of "loving only", which allows passage into the hands of fate, or that which is above man. Shangrila is a state of mind. Most of us can see it in lovers' eyes. In my book...Changri La is an empty pass, wherin a murderer might enter our Shangrila as part of "the tragic"...tragedy being allowed by "light in the darkness"...in this case two locks of hair. In Nepal, in the town of Namche, on the Everest trail, Oliver Faulkner meets his true love, Molly Firfer. He meets Greg Barton, an older man...dreaming of his wife who died years earlier farther north on this trail. And, Shoree, the daughter of a sherpa lady and hotel manager. At that hotel, enters Molly's sister, her suitor Norm, self-centered, self-destructive...and Bush, a large blond, decent-hearted but rather innocently dangerous, simple man. A murderer enters...intent on killing Oliver and somewhat of what he seems to love. Oliver and five friends travel north toward Changri La (La meaning "Pass")...this pronounced Shangrila. So, also the murderer is going to Changri La, or "the top" of the journey. Oliver feels that even the soul of a murderer is innocent at birth. He thinks that a "sameness" has been put aside...and tries to hate only the acts of the other. So...is any memorial due the murderer's life , after the end of it? If it ends in Shangrila...Oliver will depart from a shape in the snow. Then...aware of the murderer's victims, will he allot to the shape any part of the sad emptiness?
