Fall Out of Heaven: An Autobiographical Journey [Hardcover]

Alan Cheuse (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Cheuse's father, a noted Bolshevik combat pilot, defected from the Soviet Union after his plane crashed and he was given an honorable discharge. Growing up in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, the author saw his immigrant father, Philip, as a fallen hero, a sour-faced oppressor and a dreamer whose job in an auto assembly plant had crushed him. Novelist Cheuse (The Bohemians took his own son Josh to the Soviet Union in 1986 to trace their family roots. He wrote this memoir to exorcise the ghosts of his unhappy childhood, to come to terms with his father, to forge a link between the generations. His novelistic gifts for atmosphere and drama are impressive, yet the book, an act of therapy for its author, never really gels. His father's unpublished autobiography, reshaped by the novelist, is interwoven with the narrative. It makes for resonant contrasts as Alan and Josh roll into the Finland Station, tour Moscow and fly over routes Philip had once taken.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

As an aspiring young writer, Cheuse was entreated by his father, Philip, to read his manuscript of his adventures as an airplane pilot for the Red Army Air Force. "Just read it and give it a good going over." "I don't have time for that, Dad," Alan would complain. Nearly 20 years later, four years after his father's death, Cheuse, now an established writer, does read the manuscript, is entranced by this brave young pilot he'd only barely known, and decides to travel to Russia with his own son, Josh, to visit the scenes of his father's childhood and youth. The result is this very moving "autobiographical journey," an adept intertwining of the father's story, the story of Cheuse's own youth in New Jersey, and the account of the trip to Russia. Highly recommended for general collections. Marcia G. Fuchs, Guilford Free Lib., Ct.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: G.M. Smith; 1st edition (1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879052732
• ISBN-13: 978-0879052737
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,861,729 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ALAN CHEUSE


"The Voice of Books on National Public Radio"--that's how novelist, essayist and story writer Alan Cheuse has been described. For over twenty-five years, Cheuse has been "reading for America" every week on NPR, and he's also been writing a number of books of his own, and teaching the art of narrative and literature at George Mason University for over twenty years.
He is the author of the novels The Bohemians, The Grandmothers' Club and The Light Possessed. His latest novel, To Catch the Lightning (winner of the 2009 Grub Street Prize for Fiction), follows the career of turn of the century photographer Edward S. Curtis and his quest to photograph the western tribes of North America. He is also the author of several collections of short fiction and a pair of novellas published under the title The Fires. He is the co-editor with Nicholas Delbanco of Talking Horse: Bernard Malamud on Life and Art, and co-author with Delbanco of Literature: Craft & Voice, a major newly published introduction to college literary study, and also the co-editor of Writers Workshop in a Book: The Squaw Valley Community of Writers on the Art of Fiction, and editor of Listening to Ourselves: Great American Short Fiction.
Cheuse's essays, short stories, and reviews have appeared in numerous places, such as The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, World Literature Today, The Antioch Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and other venues. His essay collection, Listening to the Page, appeared in 2001. His collected travel essays came out in June 2009 under the title A Trance After Breakfast.