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.”