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Rustad presents a biography of Justin Alexander Shetler, a renowned world-traveler, adventurer, and wilderness survival expert who disappeared in the remote Parvati River Valley in India in 2016. Shetler became one of a substantial number of foreign visitors who have gone missing in that region while seeking magnificent vistas and spiritual awakenings or perhaps just the high-grade hashish for which the area is known. Rustad details Shetler's life at length, from his troubled childhood to avid outdoorsman, with a lucrative sojourn at a tech start-up business in between. He draws on Shetler’s own chronicle of his adventures on Instagram, where he had many followers, and accounts from lots of fellow travelers who knew him. Along the way readers learn a great deal about India, its geography, numerous spiritual, religious, and metaphysical traditions, and the so-called “India Syndrome” that enthralls some visitors, almost invariably to their detriment. Rustad's portrait of Shetler and the land in which his life ended is remarkably well-crafted and captivating, a powerful addition to the literature of quests and wilderness exploration.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The tale of an experienced world trekker who disappeared during a spiritual quest in the Himalayas. A well-trained American survivalist who had created a kind of cult following on social media through his arduous pursuits in the wild, Justin Alexander Shetler was just 35 when he vanished in the Parvati Valley in the late summer of 2016. Journalist Rustad has extensively interviewed those involved in Shetler’s life’s tale and disappearance. At the time, he was trekking to Mantalai Lake, “a holy site associated with Shiva” and “a manifestation of the divine,” with a sadhu, or holy man, before taking off on his own. The author underscores the dangerous lure of this part of the world, nicknamed the Valley of Shadows or the Valley of Death. “Since the early 1990s,” he writes, “dozens of international backpackers have vanished without a trace while traveling in and around the Parvati Valley, an average of one every year, earning this tiny, remote sliver of the subcontinent a dark reputation as India’s backpacker Bermuda Triangle.” Shetler was born in Florida and “raised in a religiously fluid and open household,” but after his parents divorced, he moved to Montana briefly and then to a small town outside Portland, Oregon. He was fascinated by the wilderness from an early age, and he trained as a tracker at the Wilderness Awareness School. He became disenchanted by Western materialism and yearned for a more authentic life, and he seemed to constantly have to challenge and reinvent himself, as his blogs revealed. Rustad does a good job probing Shetler’s motives, similar to those of many other Western adventurers. Was his disappearance an accident or the result of foul play by robbers and drug runners? Or did Shetler intend to escape his life and drop off the grid? There’s no definitive answer, but the journey is fascinating and well rendered. A thorough, journalistic exploration of the mindset of a seeker on a visionary quest. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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Journalist Rustad (Big Lonely Doug) crafts a haunting narrative of the life of Justin Alexander Shetler, an American backpacker who disappeared in the Indian Himalayas in 2016. A trained survivalist who’d traveled extensively, Shetler vanished while on a trip through India’s remote Parvati Valley. Though it’s renowned for its natural beauty, Rustad writes that Parvati (often called India’s “backpacker Bermuda Triangle”) is also known for its dangerous terrain where dozens have gone missing. Pulling from hundreds of interviews and his own travels to where Shetler was last seen, Rustad draws readers into a tale of adventure and tragedy that, despite its dark outcome, is illuminated with a remarkable sense of humanity. He paints a moving portrait of Shetler, a young man in love with the wilderness who was animated by a daring spirit (“When my greater fear told me no, Justin would just go for something,” one friend recalls). But even in recounting Shetler’s remarkable journeys, Rustad never veers into hagiography, taking time to reflect upon Shelter’s mental health struggles after having being sexually abused as a boy and teen, and how his friends were worried his disappearance may have been a suicide. Equal parts tribute and travelogue, this is sure to enthrall those curious about a life lived to the extreme. Agent: Stuart Krichevsky, Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency. (Jan.)