John Bragg

John Bragg, renowned climber and mountaineer, was one of the pioneers in the free climbing revolution in the US in the 1970’s, and the development of modern ice climbing in New Hampshire. He also led several first ascents in the Patagonian Andes. He has written articles for climbing publications including National Geographic, the American Alpine Journal, Climbing, Mountain, and Rock & Ice.

Bragg was captivated by Patagonia—a land of myth, of soaring granite towers, tremendous glaciers, vast lakes, of rugged beauty and hidden cruelty, and a wind so strong it is called the Broom of God—during his first expedition in 1974, and has returned again and again, exploring and climbing in both Argentina and Chile.

His first novel, The Broom of God, a mystery/thriller, takes place in remote Chilean Patagonia. where a few hardy settlers—campesinos, pobledores, gauchos—eke a living out of a harsh and difficult land. An American climber is found murdered. Danger lurks in the very landscape, secrets are everywhere, and the past, Chile’s dark and tortured political past, infects the present. The book was selected as one of five “New Voices” at the 2016 Misty Valley Book Festival in Chester, Vermont, and was short listed for the Mountain Fiction Prize at the 2017 Banff Book and Film Festival.

His second novel, Exit 8, winner of the 2019 Booklife Prize by Publisher’s Weekly and Finalist for the MWPA 2020 Fiction Award, tells the story of Roland Tuttle, a Vermont bachelor farmer whose farm is threatened by the construction of Interstate 91. Through memory and everyday life, Exit 8 tells the history of the Tuttle family and Roland's place in that history. It is a story of personal choice, nature’s dark beauty, and the often unremarked costs of progress, but most of all it is the story of Roland Tuttle, a man confronted with the loss of the only world he knows and loves.

Bragg is a graduate of Harvard University. He is currently working on his third novel, Hemlock Flat, a dark mystery that takes place in the hills of New Hampshire.