Landing [Hardcover]

Emma Donoghue (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2007

A delightful, old-fashioned love story with a uniquely twenty-first-century twist, Landing is a romantic comedy that explores the pleasures and sorrows of long-distance relationships—the kind millions of us now maintain mostly by plane, phone, and Internet.

Síle is a stylish citizen of the new Dublin, a veteran flight attendant who’s traveled the world. Jude is a twenty-five-year-old archivist, stubbornly attached to the tiny town of Ireland, Ontario, in which she was born and raised. On her first plane trip, Jude’s and Síle’s worlds touch and snag at Heathrow Airport. In the course of the next year, their lives, and those of their friends and families, will be drawn into a new, shaky orbit.

This sparkling, lively story explores age-old questions: Does where you live matter more than who you live with? What would you give up for love, and would you be a fool to do so?

(20070201)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Acclaimed Irish author Emma Donoghue's fifth novel, Landing, is a story about how far people will step outside their comfort zones to be with the ones they love. Told through the eyes of Sile O'Shaughnessy, a cosmopolitan Irish flight attendant, and Jude Turner, a sheltered museum archivist from Ireland, Ontario, Landing is a touching, if not somewhat repetitive exploration of what we are, and are not, willing to give up for love.

From the moment Jude and Sile first meet aboard a transatlantic flight, the chemistry between them is undeniable. After a rushed coffee at Heathrow, each woman returns to her own life, yet they are unable to shake the butterflies of that initial encounter. What follows is a long-distance exchange of passionate e-mails, letters, phone calls, and visits, most of which leave Sile and Jude feeling both exhilarated and despondent after each goodbye. Surrounding each heroine is a circle of friends and family members whose romantic struggles and successes highlight the pleasure and pain that often come with falling in love.

Landing is a quick read, and it's easy to become absorbed in this engaging long-distance relationship. Donoghue is skilled at brining out the humanity in each woman, so the sacrifices they both must make to keep their relationship alive never seem forced. And while we may grow tired of the constant late night missives and teary-eyed goodbyes, we find ourselves rooting for this couple, and hoping they will go the distance. --Gisele Toueg

From Publishers Weekly

In her affecting fifth novel, Donoghue (Slammerkin) explores the idea that true love can conquer all. Jude Turner is a 25-year-old androgynous Luddite who's rooted to her small Canadian town of Ireland. She's also uneasy about flying, but forces herself to board a plane when she hears that her mother, visiting family in the U.K., may be ill. On the plane she meets the older, feminine, worldly Síle O'Shaughnessy, a flight attendant who lives in the other Ireland. After exchanging contact info, the duo part and find themselves thinking of one another and writing to each other as they lead their respective lives: Jude as the curator of a tiny museum who has the occasional dalliance with her former love, Rizla; Síle in bustling Dublin, entrenched in a complacent relationship with her longtime partner, Kathleen. Jude and Síle fall in love over the course of their correspondence and try to make their relationship work despite the distance between them, nay-saying friends, jealous exes and their own nagging doubts. That Jude and Síle are so vividly opposite is the slightest bit precious, but Donoghue mitigates the boilerplate aspects of this love story with an abiding compassion for her characters. There's a lot to like here, but nothing to really love. (May)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (May 7, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151012970
• ISBN-13: 978-0151012978
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #820,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a writer of contemporary and historical fiction whose novels include the bestselling "Slammerkin," "The Sealed Letter," "Landing," "Life Mask," "Hood," and "Stirfry." Her story collections are "The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits," "Kissing the Witch," and "Touchy Subjects." She also writes literary history, and plays for stage and radio. She lives in London, Ontario, with her partner and their two small children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dream. Of Being Together., September 13, 2007

By 

Cipriano "www.bookpuddle.blogspot.com" (Planet Claire) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Landing (Hardcover)

I just finished reading my sixth book by Emma Donoghue.

I was just about to say sixth "novel" but three of the others were short story collections. Emma is a terrific short-storyist, and yet I think she is even a greater novelist. She's written five. So let's talk about this one, her latest, called Landing.

First off, I freakin' LOVED IT.

Landing is about two women that fall for each other while having coffee and eating raisin crumpets at London's Heathrow airport. They met because an old guy died on the first woman. And when I say "on" I mean "on". But yet, not what you think!

Her name is Jude Turner. She was on a flight to London to retrieve her ill mother. Jude is from a small town, [fictitious] Ireland, Ontario, and this is her first time in a plane. The old man seated next to her quietly croaks, and leans into her. At first Jude thinks he is merely sleeping. Alerting the stewardess to the situation, they together conclude that he is totally dead.

Upon landing at Heathrow, they meet again at the baggage carousel and end up in the restaurant, talking. Not her and the dead guy. Her and this hot stewardess.

Sile [pronounced Sheila] is her name. Sile O'Shaunessy. She lives in Dublin, and she is Irish / Indian. Voluptuous. Ravishing, even. Sile is hip, addicted to technology, and leads a vibrant, socially exuberant, urban lifestyle.

Jude is in very worn jeans, and is somewhat androgynous. She cuts her own hair. Badly. She rides a Triumph motorcylce when she is not driving her old rusty Ford Mustang. She eschews technology and leads an extremely quiet life as a museum curator, back in Ontario.

Although Sile and Jude go their separate ways after their initial encounter, they cannot seem to forget about each other.

And so, they re-connect. Sile initiates this.

But their re-connection is limited to the telephone and [later] the Internet.

E-mail. Also, old-fashioned actual paper letters are sent!

While their relationship grows as a result of these connections, the very [shall we say, untactile?] means in which they are forced to communicate only accentuates the physical distance between them.

In a phrase, it drives them crazy!

And so they meet again.

And then return to their respective corners of the planet.

And e-mail, and telephone, and call and call, and write, and e-mail.

And dream.

Of being together.

Landing is a wonderfully-written, realistic look at the difficulties inherent in long-distance relationships... or LDR's, as they are often referred to in the book.

There may have been a time when lovers restricted their "partner-finding" to some sort of five-mile radius of their own homestead, but those days are over. Ours is the era of the global village, and there are really very few insurmountable geographical boundaries to "love."

We want the best for Sile and Jude, even while we, the readers, are often just as confused as they are, as to what the best might mean for them!

There are many twists and many turns in this novel which I will not at all mention here. I encourage you to GET THE BOOK and enjoy these for yourself.

At the end of Landing, I cried. A bit. In a public place [Starbucks]. I must confess.

Emma Donoghue is one of my favorite contemporary writers, and Landing is a winner.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars welcome back to the present, August 20, 2007

By 

Deborah Peifer (San Rafael CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Landing (Hardcover)

As much as I thoroughly enjoyed Emma Donoghue's historical novels Slammerkin and Life Mask, I'll confess to a longing for her to turn her extraordinary novelist's eye to a contemporary topic. Landing fulfills that wish and a great deal more. This is a story that could only take place in the time of easy international travel, email, and long-distance telephone. And yet, the long-distance relationship that Donoghue explores is all the more painful because of these aids to long-distance communication. It seems as if they are always in touch, but touch, physical, sensual, tactile, is just what is missing despite the connections offered by phone and email. Sile and Jude are wonderful characters, vibrant, funny, touching, and imperfect in complementary ways. Their effort to connect, to make hard choices, to love one another despite the distance (Jude is in Ontario, Canada, Sile in Dublin and the Atlantic Ocean is far more than a pond), despite their very different ways of seeing and being in the world, is the stuff of a great story, and Donoghue is a great storyteller. I recommend Landing highly. It is a splendid novel that will make you think about your own life and your own choices in a completely new way.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Loved this Novel!, September 10, 2007

By 

Finbar Fellowes (East Coast) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Landing (Hardcover)

Having read Donoghue's other work did not really prepare me for how much I would like this contemporary novel.

Donoghue is one of a very few novelists who writes about lesbians and their lives in an intelligent and literate way. This book is light, and smart and very well written.

It perfectly creates the longing and uncertainty involved in starting a new relationship when everything is up for grabs.

Donoghue can do it all.

Reading Landing makes me look forward to whatever else comes next

I loved it.