Society of the Snow: The Definitive Account of the World’s Greatest Survival Story

Pablo Vierci

Dec 2023 · Sold by Constable

About this ebook

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It was 13 October 1972. Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, carrying a team of young rugby players, their families and friends, took off for the very last time. A deadly miscalculation saw F571 crash directly into the Andean mountains to devastating consequences: the body of the plane broke violently into two, its floor torn to smithereens; seats flew out of the air taking passengers with them. In the weeks that followed, the remaining people who were on board - the society of the snow - emerged to fight a dire, gruelling battle for survival.

Waiting for a rescue team that didn't arrive, the survivors became fewer and fewer in numbers. Stranded alone on a glacier, they had to face brutal temperatures, lethal avalanches and the loss of friends and family with no access to supplies, food or water. In order to survive, they had to do the unthinkable . . . It wasn't until seventy-two days later that they were able to reach safety.

Alarmingly gritty, moving and powerfully told, journalist Pablo Vierci recounts the unsettling stories of the sixteen survivors in intimate detail. Drawing on exclusive interviews, Society of the Snow delves into the tragedy of the crash and how it radically redefined the rest of the survivors' lives. Ultimately, however, the book is a touching testament to the strength of faith, friendship, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Ratings and reviews

This is not a linear tale of survival. This is more like random essays of varying topics by varying authors loosely arranged around the crash, and featuring a lot of what came years after the crash. This reads more like an author's collected notes of a book about the crash in which the author was too lazy or scattered to actually write an account. Some chapters are literally transcripts of old interviews. Maybe this works for those that have the attention span of a gnat? Very unsatisfying. This may make a decent companion piece to the superior book "Alive" but again, take note that this reads like the afterword to "Alive" instead of being an exhaustive account of the crash and survival. This is far from being a "definitive" account, as there is no account, just random essays.

very descriptive

About the author

Pablo Vierci is a native of Montevideo, Uruguay and also an Italian citizen. He is an award-winning author, scriptwriter and director. He has also written I Had To Survive, co-authored with Dr. Roberto Canessa.