Vermont Book Shop and Middlebury Baseball present:

An Evening with Devon O’Neil

Journalist and award-winning author of The Way Out

Friday, November 6 in the Anderson Studio

Cash bar 4:30 to 5:30pm
Conversation 6 to 7pm

Join Vermont Book Shop and Middlebury Baseball for an evening in conversation with journalist and Middlebury College graduate Devon O’Neil. His book The Way Out won both the Reading the West Book Award and the Colorado Book Award. It tells the true story of a backcountry ski outing outside Salida, Colorado, that became a thirty-hour ordeal when fifteen-year-old Cole Walters-Schaler and experienced outdoorsman Brett Beasley were caught in an unforgiving blizzard.

Drawing on firsthand interviews, O’Neil traces the tragedy and its aftermath. He explores the allure of wilderness adventure, the effects of trauma, and the difficult path toward forgiveness. Bill Gifford, bestselling coauthor of Outlive, writes, “I couldn’t stop reading it, and I can’t stop thinking about it.” Bestselling author Hampton Sides calls it “a thoughtful, sorrowful page-turner.”

The Way Out asks profound questions about risk, responsibility, and how a close-knit community finds its way forward after unimaginable loss.