Michael Clarkson

Long before skydiving and paragliding, bungee jumping and zip lines, there was a far simpler way to get a thrill: barrel-jumping. Extreme adrenaline junkies and thrill seekers would cram themselves in a wooden barrel and launch themselves down waterfalls. And an even smaller group of dedicated thrill seekers would risk their lives going down America’s most wondrous, massive and dangerous waterfall: Niagara Falls. Through extensive research, Michael Clarkson’s THE AGE OF DAREDEVILS (Little A, on sale 10/1/16) reveals the thrilling true story of a the Hill family, a family that sought adventure at every turn – from secret marriages, heroic rescues and dangerous stunts, to the ultimate daredevil act: jumping down Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel in the summer of 1951. Incorporating family drama, action and adventure and love story, this true tale chronicles the lives of the men and women who devoted themselves to the extraordinary sport of jumping over Niagara Falls at the dawn of the twentieth century. Internationally known in the 1920s and ’30s for their barrel-jumping exploits, the Hills were a father-son team of daredevils who also rescued dozens of misguided thrill seekers and accident victims who followed them into the river. The publicity surrounding the Hills’s spectacular feats ushered in tourism, making Niagara Falls the nation’s foremost honeymoon destination, but ultimately set Red Hill Jr. on a death-defying path to surpass his father’s extraordinary leaps into the void. In 1951, Red Hill Jr. risked it all – goaded on by his lineage and a promise to his wife, he climbed into a barrel, and jumped down the falls in front of 200,000 spectators. Like the works of Jon Krakauer and David McCullough, THE AGE OF DAREDEVILS explores the primal forces of fear and the thirst for adventure that drive humans to the brink of death to see if, and how, they can somehow escape. Along the way, Clarkson reveals the lure of Niagara Falls – how it became the premiere destination for honeymooners in the mid-twentieth century and how it still remains one of the most awe-inspiring natural wonders, ushering in more than 22 million visitors a year – and reveals the escapades of other daredevils like Annie Edson Taylor, Bobby Leach, Gene Lussier and Karl Soucek.