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Originally published in 2018, Terence Shannon’s Mt. Everest in Flip-Flops is a reflective, autobiographically styled but apparently completely fictional novel about the formative power of youth and memory. Set in a Catholic summer camp in 1972, the book mostly eschews conventional plot drama in favour of episodic scenes that gradually tell a story. Through the young voice of its narrator, Jake Sullivan, Shannon takes the reader through a series of notable incidents in the late adolescence of his protagonist.
The novel follows nineteen-year-old Jake Sullivan through a summer in 1972 that proves to be the hinge of his youth. Working as a counsellor at Fort Ross, a Catholic summer camp, Jake navigates camp life—exterminating a cellar full of rats, suffering forty-three bee stings, supervising muddy hikes—while forming friendships and attachments that shape him long after. His closest companion is Dalton Talbott, a wealthy, charismatic fellow counsellor whose confidence both dazzles and unsettles Jake. However, the heart of the novel lies in Jake’s infatuation with Allie Smith, the camp nurse and a Vietnam veteran. As Shannon writes, “She’s Mt. Everest, and you’re wearing flip-flops.”
Perhaps in part because it’s presented as a true story, Shannon’s characters really feel like real people. Jake is self-effacing, often ironic about his own inadequacies, yet perceptive about others. His narrative voice is colloquial, striking a balance between youthful immediacy and adult reflection. On the other hand, Dalton Talbott, Jake’s fellow counsellor, embodies effortless confidence. Wealthy, charismatic, and good-humoured, Dalton could easily have been a stock figure, but Shannon thankfully avoids this. The novel’s most complex figure and the “Mount Everest” of the title is Allie Smith, the camp nurse. She is older than the counsellors, marked by her service as a nurse in Vietnam, and has numerous memorable lines like, “Life is cheap. I learned there are parts of this world where life is as cheap as a single dollar.”
Shannon writes with a keen ear for dialogue. Exchanges are brisk, teasing, and often laugh-out-loud funny. The oscillation between absurdity and tenderness is the novel’s defining stylistic feature. The book’s episodic form is debatably a little meandering, but I appreciated how Shannon resists the temptation to impose a false narrative order on adolescence. It’s obviously very different, but it even reminded me a bit of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.
While much of the novel’s surface concerns camp rituals, the Vietnam War and the seventies in general are a constant undertone. Allie’s presence also prevents the book from floating away on nostalgia. The war is not really described directly, but it hovers. Moreover, the early seventies setting gives the novel a strong sense of immersion: the music of Bob Dylan drifts through the infirmary, Catholic rituals still shape daily life. It is a world perched between the fading optimism of the sixties and theharsh realities of modernity.
The novel is not without flaws. Its reliance on episodic structure means momentum sometimes slightly falters. Readers accustomed to tightly woven, page-turning plots may find themselves searching for a climax that never arrives. Similarly, the unresolved nature of Jake’s relationship with Allie risks leaving readers unsatisfied. Yet these limitations may also be viewed as formal honesty: after all, adolescence itself is rarely conclusive, and we all have old flames that shaped us.
Overall, I really enjoyed Mt. Everest in Flip-Flops. It’s an accomplished exploration of adolescence with a lot of memorable scenes. Shannon’s characters, namely Jake, Dalton, and Allie, are all relatable and sharply realised, and may serve as vehicles for larger archetypes that will make you think back on your own youth. For fans of coming-of-age fiction such as Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life, John Irving’s early novels, or Stephen King’s Stand By Me, Shannon’s book will feel like a natural and rewarding companion.
Final Verdict: A thoughtful and subtly gripping novel that treats adolescence not as a series of clichés but as a landscape of memory, both comic and profound. As Shannon writes in the conclusion, “That summer was the great dividing line of my life, even more so than marriage. There was a before and after.” May we all have such memorable summers.
You can get your copy of “Mt. Everest in Flip-Flops” or read for free on Kindle Unlimited here!
