Set against the backdrop of Colorado's recent historic legalization of marijuana, “A Life At High Altitude” is a departure from the typical stoner/dealer/smuggler fiction so commonly found in marijuana literature. “A Life At High Altitude” is an endearing, mature, philosophical story of one woman's life journey.

Rosalie Sullivan grew up in a mountain ski town in the Colorado Rockies during the 1960's. Her brother is killed in the Vietnam War the very same year that Rosalie graduates from high school. Not long after receiving the news about her brother, her parents die in a car crash while returning from a ski outing. Devastated by the loss of both her brother and parents Rosalie is left facing life on her own.

While working at the same ski resort that her parents had, she meets Preston Kane. Preston is on a corporate retreat with a group of chemical engineers working for the Ronsonto Chemical Corporation out of Saint Louis, Missouri. A brief fling with Preston leaves Rosalie pregnant, resulting in a marriage that takes her out of Colorado landing her in Saint Louis. However, the marriage ends quickly in divorce and a bitter child custody battle ensues, stripping her of all maternal rights and preventing her from ever contacting her three year old son again. A defeated, broken twenty-three year old Rosalie, not much more than a child herself, returns to Colorado alone. The year is 1969.

Fast forward to the year 2014. The story opens with Rosalie's son, Jason, now a forty-seven year old man along with his wife Deborah on their way to Colorado to meet his estranged, biological mother for the first time in over forty years. He finds her in Apex, a small isolated town high in the Rocky Mountains. Rosalie, a respected artist, is now in her late sixties and is battling cancer for which she takes medical marijuana, much to Jason's disapproval and initial disappointment.

For her entire adult life Rosalie had hoped, beyond hope, that she would one day see her long lost son again. There are two sides to every story, and now the day has finally come for Rosalie to tell her's.

Rosalie's story goes back to the Vietnam War years, the peace movement, the 68 Chicago Riots and the part that the Ronsonto Chemical Corporation, now her son's employer, played in her divorce and the ensuing parental alienation that followed.

“A Life At High Altitude” is a contemporary tale about how life just whisks you along, while living with the decisions one makes along the way. The heart warming ending to “A Life At High Altitude” will leave the reader feeling good about life, death and Rosalie Sullivan.

O'Donnell Brian

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