Flight: A Novel [Hardcover]

Ginger Strand (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2005

In her haunting debut novel, Flight, Ginger Strand creates an unforgettable portrait of a midwestern family navigating an indelibly changed world. Will Gruen loves to fly. As a Michigan farm boy, he longed to clear a furrow through sky, not land. Since then, he has pursued speed and forward motion, from his Air Force service in Vietnam to his thirty years as a commercial pilot for TWA. His passion for flight is matched only by his love for the family farm he considers his personal refuge. But in the aftermath of September 11, Will's world implodes. As he nears mandatory retirement, his beloved airline has collapsed. His wife is turning his farm into a bed-and-breakfast. His older daughter has chosen an open marriage, and her sister has fled seven hundred miles away to New York. Now, with the wedding of their younger daughter approaching, the Gruen family is coming home. Over three emotional days, the past collides with the present, secrets are revealed, new ties are made and old ones broken as each of the Gruens stands at the brink of taking a step that could not only change the path of one life but could alter the family's course. Deftly entwining the voices of Will and his colorful family, Strand creates a dazzling, multilayered chronicle of ordinary Americans in an era of sweeping hange -- and of people with only love to keep them aloft in an uncertain world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Strand peels away layers of tension in a Midwestern family as one of its members prepares for her marriage. Will Gruen grew up on a Michigan farm but got his wings in the Air Force during Vietnam. After 30 years as a TWA pilot, he's staring his mandatory retirement in the face—but he's plotting a way to remain airborne. His wife, Carol, always wanted to be an entrepreneur; her latest grand plan involves turning the family farm into a bed-and-breakfast—with or without Will's consent. But Will and Carol can't act on their plans until they host a wedding for their youngest daughter, Leanne, who's having some unpleasant pre-wedding jitters. Eldest daughter Margaret has always been the most organized family member, but when her precarious open marriage begins to fall apart and her orderly life is threatened, she realizes that she has never really been in control. Through shifting points of view, Strand writes convincingly, if not scintillatingly, of the Gruen family as they face down their demons and reach out for their dreams in this solid debut. Agent, Nat Sobel. (May)
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From Booklist

Strand proves herself to be a first-rate storyteller in her debut novel, which takes place in the days leading up to a wedding in rural Michigan. Past and present family trials--from a father's memories of Vietnam to one daughter's impending divorce--are told from the point of view of all four members of the Gruen family: Will, the airline pilot not taking kindly to retirement; his wife, Carol, who fantasizes about starting a bed-and-breakfast; eldest daughter Margaret, a driven academic in an unhappy marriage; and Leanne, the unenthusiastic bride. Strand avoids sentimentality while painting a realistic portrait of family, and of four people who, although they live at such varied paces, circle one another in search of comfort. While the book is set one year after 9/11, that date serves as a sort of fog resting over the lives of Strand's characters. A finely wrought novel about the back-and-forthness of life, Strand's debut, set against a post-9/11, flag-bedecked America, perfectly captures the wearying effects of that motion. Annie Tully
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1 edition (May 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743266846
• ISBN-13: 978-0743266840
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,781,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Michigan and raised in Texas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, in that order. Here are my obsessions: water, ancient Rome, infrastructure, SuperFund, airplanes, silent film, panopticons, P.T. Barnum, photography, lies, the 1930s, Niagara Falls, EPA, Edward Wormley, consumerism and rhinoceroses, especially one named Clara who lived in the 18th century.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful debut, May 14, 2005

By 

Lauren Baratz-Logsted (Danbury, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flight: A Novel (Hardcover)

The author's last name is somehow indicative of her work, given that it's the many strands playing out the unified theme that give Flight its range and depth. "Will Gruen loves to fly," says the flapcopy. Too bad for him, since the Vietnam Air Force veteran has been grounded in Michigan, living a quieter life on a farm. But as plans heat up for his youngest daughter's wedding, there's a lot going on in the Gruen family: Will's wife plans on turning the farm into a bed-and-breakfast; his oldest daughter, living an open marriage, returns home for the wedding with her son but not her husband; and the youngest is showing ambivalence about walking down that long aisle. Set in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Flight is about the journeys we take and the journeys we want to take and all the decisions we make along the way.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Hobbled Taking Flight, July 31, 2005

By 

Zinta Aistars "Writer & Editor" (Portage, MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flight: A Novel (Hardcover)

Flight is a story about family. Real family. The kind with dysfunctions in every closet. Set in a fictional rural Michigan town, the Gruen family gathers on the family farm to celebrate the wedding of youngest daughter, Leanne.

Will Gruen, the father, is a pilot who is feeling his age and the fast approach of what may be his last opportunity as a commercial airline pilot. He has received an offer that would mean relocating to Hong Kong, and he has yet to gather the courage to broach the subject with wife, Carol. He wonders if he might accept the transfer even if Carol does not agree to go with him.

And she might not. On Carol's mind is a bed and breakfast, and as she moves about the farmhouse in wedding preparations, her mind is filled with ideas of transformation for the farmhouse into a business, and with it, the giddy seduction of independence.

Eldest daughter Margaret has secrets of her own. She arrives making excuses for an absentee husband, but over the span of the three days of wedding preparation, it is revealed that divorce, complete with messy custody battles, is impending.

But surely the bride is happy? No. The bride is sneaking drinks from a silver flask, and not only does she suffer cold feet the night before the wedding-she takes flight.

Ginger Strand's first novel takes on family drama with openhearted courage. The reader is allowed to feel a part of the wedding hustle and madness, and to be one of the family, without fanfare, roll up your sleeves and help shell the shrimp.

Strand's literary style is straightforward with just the right spice of wit. She tells an everyday story with flair and humor. A subtle parallel image throughout the drama is a pair of caged doves being kept for dramatic release at the wedding ceremony. Throughout the movement of the story, now and then, here and there, the characters check the doves: are they perhaps feeling ill from being caged too long and kept in the garage? Will they take flight on cue?

Recommended.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strong Plot, Elegant Writing, May 17, 2005

By 

Patry Francis (Cape Cod, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flight: A Novel (Hardcover)

This first novel has it all: characters so real and affecting they leap off the page, a plot that's full of surprises, and a strong narrative voice that signals the introduction of a writer to watch. Will Gruen, the grounded pilot, Vietnam veteran, and bemused family man is the kind of character who haunts the reader long after the novel is finished. In the end, his questions are our own, and they are the big ones. With a deft and graceful touch, Strand takes on family, the lingering effects of war, and the uncertainty of living in a post 9/11 world.