No Mountain High Enough: Raising Lance, Raising Me

From the mother of champion cyclist Lance Armstrong—an extraordinary story of the resilience of the human spirit and the remarkable effect of great parenting.Lance Armstrong has dazzled the world with his six straight Tour de France championships, his winning personality, and his poignant victory over life-threatening cancer. Yet the adage that "behind every strong man there is a stronger woman" has never been more true than in Lance’s case. His mother, Linda Armstrong Kelly, is a force of nature whose determination, optimism, and sheer joie de vivre not only nurtured one of our era’s greatest athletes but fueled her own transformation from a poverty-stricken teen in the Dallas projects to a powerful role model for mothers everywhere. This luminous memoir, written with humor and compassion, tells Linda’s story of survival.Pregnant at age seventeen, kicked out of her home, and mired in an abusive relationship, Linda was a perfect candidate for disaster. But armed with a fierce belief in herself as a work in progress, and buoyed by a tidal wave of love for her little boy, Linda flouted statistics and became both a corner-office executive and a no-nonsense, empowering mom whose desire to excel was contagious. Her resolve to find “the diamond in the Dumpster, the blessing in every bummer” set an extraordinary example for Lance—and will inspire everyday moms to dream big and make a difference.Funny, resonant, down-to-earth, and utterly unforgettable, No Mountain High Enough is exhilarating proof that sheer willpower can—and occasionally does—triumph over adversity.From Linda Armstrong Kelly’s No Mountain High Enough:“This is what it means to be a mother, I realized. It had nothing to do with being old enough or knowing everything or keeping to a strict schedule. It had to do with loving someone with a love so huge, the rest of the world becomes insignificant by comparison. No fear I felt would ever amount to anything, compared to what I felt for my child. No task would ever be too hard for me. No one would ever be able to make me feel small. I was The Mama. You don’t get any bigger than that.” Publishers Weekly A memoir written by a famous athlete's mother may seem like a blatant attempt to cash in on yet another aspect of the athlete's celebrity. Yet Kelly, mother of six-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, has managed to turn out an honest, fun and engaging account of her life. For the most part, this is Kelly's story, in which Lance plays a key supporting role. Kelly painstakingly recounts her 1960s Texas childhood with a poor mother who moved the family (sans Kelly's father, who abandoned them) from one lousy apartment to the next. Though self-sufficient-she landed a job at a KFC when she was only 13-Kelly was thrown for a loop when she unexpectedly became pregnant (with Lance) as a junior in high school. She made the most of her limited circumstances, raising Lance alone. They'd eat mac and cheese and play silly games at home instead of going out to the movies; they got used to stumbling and getting up again. Kelly relates their trials-as well as the string of less-than-perfect boyfriends and husbands she went through-in a winningly homey and self-teasing manner. Not surprisingly, when the issue of Lance's cancer arises later in the book and mother and son endure brutal rounds of chemotherapy, readers' heartstrings get thoroughly strummed, though not unnecessarily so. This is a sincerely heartwarming tale, laced with true Texas grit. Agent, David Hale Smith. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.