Robert Charles Lee is a retired risk scientist with over twenty-five years of academic and applied risk analysis, decision analysis, and risk management experience in a wide variety of contexts. He has authored over one hundred peer-reviewed scientific works, as well as over one hundred technical reports for industry and government agencies. Prior to the professional risk work he worked in laboratories a bit, but otherwise was a manual laborer until he reckoned that he could use his brain for a living.
Robert has a BS in Botany, a BS in Science Education, an MS in Environmental Health, and a Certificate in Integrated Business Administration. He is ABD (all but dissertation) in a Toxicology PhD program. He is an ordained Minister and has an honorary Doctorate of Metaphysics from the Universal Life Church and is a Member of the Nova Scotia L’Ordre du Bon Temps, or Order of the Good Time.
He was born in North Carolina and lived there for over twenty years, but has since lived in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and Alberta. He was also homeless for a time while a laborer in the Western United States. He currently resides in Colorado.
Robert and his wife Linda have climbed hundreds of technical and non-technical mountain, rock, ice, and canyon routes, hiked thousands of miles in several countries, and skied many miles of vertical feet at resorts and in the backcountry.
Robert is an avid amateur photographer, largely of outdoor subjects. He is a musician who plays hand, stick, and mallet percussion, and who can sing, but rarely does for unclear reasons. He is an amateur sound engineer and producer and has recorded more than a thousand written and improvisational instrumental pieces with other musicians to date. He was trying to learn to relax in retirement, but then he discovered non-technical writing. He has written a memoir and a poetry collection and is working on short stories.
Through Dangerous Doors is his latest book.
Visit his website at https://robertcharleslee.com or follow him on Goodreads.
Thanks for this interview, Robert. Congratulations on your new book! Would you say it’s been a rocky road for you in regards to getting your book written and published or pretty much smooth sailing? Can you tell us about your journey?
Writing the initial draft manuscript was easy for me, as the book is about my life. I was also a scientist for 25 years, and wrote many articles and reports, so I was accustomed to efficiently and effectively getting my ideas across on paper. Transitioning to non-technical writing was challenging, but I just had to start telling my life stories in a clear and entertaining fashion. My editors (including my wife) were a great help in this regard.
Publishing was a different matter. I find the non-technical publishing world to be a strange industry, as it seems to actively discourage the clients who pay its bills. I initially tried to go down the typical literary agent/major publishing house route, but became frustrated. Seriously, what type of business says things to customers like “send us something, we might take months to review it if you’re lucky, if you don’t hear from us we aren’t interested, and DON’T contact us in any event.” So, I’m lucky I found a small publishing house who was interested. I see the appeal of self-publishing, but it’s expensive (assuming the author hires good editors, etc.), and it requires a lot of self-marketing.
If you were to pen your own autobiography, what might the title be?
Ha ha, “Through Dangerous Doors: A Life at Risk”!
When not writing, what do you like to do for relaxation and/or fun?
Hiking, skiing, taking photographs, playing music. I used to read more, before I started writing.
What makes your book stand out from the rest?
I’m unaware of any other memoir written by a former risk scientist who has lived a personally risky life. Many reviewers have praised it for its honesty.
Can you give us the very first page of your book so that
we can get a glimpse inside?
The horse gallops across our range of a few acres. I’m exhilarated and
barely hanging on, but my father, Charles, is watching. I go hunting with him,
and he guffaws when I’m almost knocked flat by the recoil of my first deafening
discharge of a twelve-gauge. I explore the copperhead-snake, wasp, hornet,
tick, chigger, and poison ivy infested hardwood forest on our property. My feet
and legs are bare much of the year. However, I tread carefully. The door to the
outdoors opens. I’m six or seven years old, but I eagerly enter.
***
I was serious about managing risk, even as a kid. Life began as a late
Boomer and a Fallout Boy. A B-52 bomber broke up over my home state in 1961,
releasing two nuclear bombs. Above-ground nuclear weapons tests were conducted
in the United States West, creating radioactive dust clouds. These events
perhaps foretold a career steeped in radiation.
My family is of working-class, British and Scots-Irish ancestry; the
original hillbillies in the Appalachians and Piedmont. My birthplace and time
were subject to systemic White racism, resulting in the designation “Klansville,
USA.” We lived near Salisbury in rural Granite Quarry, North Carolina, about a
mile from the gated compound of Bob Jones, a powerful Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon.
Jones was kicked out of the Navy for refusing to salute a Black officer,
proclaiming, “I won’t salute no nigger.” Jones helped expand the North Carolina
KKK to over ten-thousand members. A friend and I once snuck over to watch a
cross-burning near his property.
If the neighborhood White men weren’t pickin’ and grinnin’, drinking and
playing guitars and banjos on their porches on a Saturday night, they were
hanging out with their bros in the local men’s Klub. I don’t recall any
lynchings, but harassment and violence were common. The county sheriff was a
Klan member, and wore a Western cowboy hat on his bald head and a patch over
one dead eye. Chain-gangs broke rocks in the steaming South- ern heat under the
squinty eyes of shotgun-toting overseers on horseback. Most of the Black people
in the area lived in segregation in the equivalent of a shanty town. Schools,
churches, and most activities were segregated.
My family is purported to be related to the slaveowner and traitor General Robert E. Lee, but I’ve not been able to verify this. If true, I’m appalled in a moral sense, but there’s nothing I can do about it aside from trying to be an anti-racist and a good citizen. At least I don’t have the same middle name. I do indeed have a red neck, but solely due to years of outdoor activity.
If your book was put in the holiday section of the store, what holiday would that be and why?
Christmas or New Year’s, because there’s a lot of snow and ice in it.
Would you consider turning your book into a series or has that already been done?
This is an interesting idea. The memoir focuses on risk, but I have plenty of non-risky but interesting life experiences (I toured to the Caribbean in a Canadian steel drum band, for example). I’ve also thought about writing about some of my more interesting professional work experiences, but I think I need to give those a bit more distance first, or I might get in trouble. For example, I worked with a lot of risks the public worries and obsesses about, but which in reality are overstated or entirely hypothetical. Entire government agencies and industries are built around these risks, so I think it would be interesting to write about them.
When you were young, did you ever see writing as a career or full-time profession?
Not at all. As the book describes, I was way too busy with other things. In fact, I didn’t even view science as a career until I was in my late 20s.
Did any of your books get rejected by publishers?
As I described above, this book was apparently rejected by numerous agents and publishers, as I only heard crickets after my manuscript submissions. I haven’t submitted any other manuscripts to date.
What is your view on co-authoring books; have you done any?
I’ve co-authored many scientific articles, reports, and book chapters, but no popular books. I suspect multi-authored technical writing is easier, as all of the authors know what’s expected and what the outcome will be, and there’s little creativity involved. I think co-authoring a popular book would be difficult unless the authors are friends who already have a good working relationship.
What’s next for you?
I recently moved from New
Mexico to Colorado, during a pandemic and a crazy housing market, so this has
taken up a lot of my time. I want to get back to playing music, which has been
on hold due to the move and the COVID-19 pandemic. I would also like to record
an audio version of the memoir, but this is a long and arduous process.
I’ve written a collection
of short stories, and I’m exploring different publication avenues for some or
all of these. I hired a couple of different editors to critique the stories,
and they gave me completely different feedback, so this was of limited value.
However, one editor mentioned that one story in particular could easily be
expanded into a series or novel. I’m thinking about it.
In a life defined by risk, Robert Charles Lee experiences a poor and free-ranging childhood in the racist South of the 1960s. After his father dies, the family grows dysfunctional. As a result, teen-age Robert seeks sanity and solace by rock climbing solo and driving cars fast. He wins a scholarship and graduates from university, but still seeks to escape the South.
Moving to Alaska and the Western US, Robert works in a series of dangerous and brutal jobs. He meets and marries Linda, who enjoys climbing and skiing difficult mountains as much as he does. Simultaneously, Robert trains in the science of risk to become a respected professional risk scientist.
Robert shares his remarkable story as he guides the reader through a series of dangerous but rewarding doors, culminating in a vivid journey of adventure and risk.
“Through Dangerous Doors is an engaging and snappily written reflection on a life charted by risk. Like the dangerous mountains he eventually comes to climb, Lee’s need to be on the edge and in the flow guide him on a fascinating ascent up the American socio-economic pyramid, a challenging mountain in itself, and geographically from the lowland South to high country of the North. Small wonder that when Lee and his wife arrive in Calgary, Alberta to live for a decade they immerse themselves in what Lee wisely comes to realize is one of the most dangerous, yet spiritually rewarding mountain ranges in the world – the Canadian Rockies. Lee’s lifelong evaluation, and refinement of, the risk versus reward calculation is educational. And I love the way he calls poppycock when he sees it. Lee shares life lessons that were hard won and valuable to all.” – Barry Blanchard, UIAGM/IFMGA Mountain Guide, author of The Calling – A Life Rocked by Mountains, winner of the Boardman-Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature
“Much more than a book on mountaineering, Robert Charles Lee’s memoir delves deeply into the relationship between risk and reward, exploring the things we can control and those we can’t. His journey of self-discovery has resulted in a thoughtful meditation on the nature of adventure and what makes for a life well lived. Lee’s story will resonate with any readers who have experienced the incomparable satisfaction of challenging themselves while at the same time understanding the wisdom of respecting their limits.” –Scott Zesch, author of “The Captured,” winner of the TCU Texas Book Award
“This is a memoir like few others, in that the author is intent on beseeching his readers not to follow the example of his own life. The story he tells shows that this is very good advice indeed, but nevertheless his tale of improbable escapes from one looming disaster after another is both instructive and entertaining.” – William Leiss, Queen’s University, author of: In the Chamber of Risks: Understanding Risk Controversies, Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk: The Perils of Poor Risk Communication, and Risk and Responsibility
“In this engaging and very readable memoir, Robert Lee reminds us that life IS risk. Humans only continue to learn, grow and evolve through facing and conquering risks. Whether the risks are involuntary or voluntary, Lee aptly emphasizes that the key to survival, or even thriving, is how we choose to understand and manage those risks. While Lee’s recounting of his numerous climbing risk adventures reflects his personal approach to risk and risk management, his stories will resonate strongly with anyone who seeks the challenge and stimulation of being a ‘risk taker’. This book will ultimately make you examine more closely your own life in relation to the risks you choose or don’t choose to undertake.” – Cindy Jardine, University of the Fraser Valley, world record skydiver
“As autobiographies like Educated and The Glass Castle have taught us, growing up through hardship can be remarkably annealing. So too in this disarmingly honest memoir, where Lee relates his annealed response. He adeptly strings us along his extraordinary lifepath from childhood until retirement using an idiosyncratic lens: A meditation on risk serves as Lee’s through-line, one informed by his career in risk analysis. Sit and enjoy the windfall of a raconteur relaying how he and his fellow travelers have encountered and responded to risks. Many encounters, like his vivid recounts of ice and mountain climbing, are quite intense. We get a taste of life as a forester, psychedelic-explorer, musician, academic, blessed husband and alpinist. Some entrancing events, nicely infused with a humble `stock-taking’ of the cards that were dealt, and the choices made. An extraordinary story that resonates beyond risk.” – Kevin Brand, University of Ottawa
““Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all” wrote Helen Keller in her passageway focused book The Open Door. Metaphorical passageways hurtle us in and out of the risky exploits of Mr. Lee in Through Dangerous Doors. Climbing on a glacier or rappelling down a mountain, Lee shows us the thrill of daring adventure. But risk is not the goal, it is the price paid for adventure – and sometimes that price is too high. Lee helps us see that managing risk, sometimes with tools or technology and sometimes by knowing when to say no, is the key to continuing to be able to pass through new doors.” – George Gray, George Washington University, co-author of Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in the World Around You
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