A high mountain lake in the Colorado Rockies is the point of departure for these stories of dark adventure, in which vividly drawn landscapes provide an immersive setting for narratives about coming of age, altered states, moral slippage, romantic love, sexual jealousy, and impenetrable loneliness. Fishing guides, amateur sportsmen, teenage misfits, scientists, mountaineers, and expatriates embark on disquieting journeys of self-discovery in far-flung places: the hazardous tidal waters of Nantucket, the granite quarries and ski slopes of New Hampshire, Venezuela's Orinoco basin, the...