A nonfiction work tracing the glory of adventurer Naomi Uemura and the severe path that led to his disappearance on Mount McKinley. It depicts the solitude, obsession, and cost of challenge behind the heroic image.

It follows the ordeal beneath an adventurer's glory through the snows of McKinley.

A nonfiction account centered on Norio Tsukamoto, the fourth president of the National Cancer Center, tracing how cancer medicine in Japan developed during the Showa era. It follows doctors, patients, research, and clinical practice as part of a broader social history of illness.

The book brings the medical history of Showa-era Japan into view through the lives of doctors who confronted cancer.