Natural Flights of the Human Mind: A Novel (P.S.) [Paperback]

Clare Morrall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 13, 2006 | Series: P.S.

In a disused lighthouse on the Devon coast lives Peter Straker, a recluse who, in his dreams, is visited by an oddly disparate group of people from a grandmother to a teenager. But they have all been dead for 24 years -- and Straker thinks he killed them. Many years ago, newly-married Imogen Doody's husband went to work one day and never came back, leaving her angry at life and other people. Now Imogen has inherited a cottage near Straker's lighthouse, a piece of good fortune she badly needs. But the cottage is falling down, and she needs help restoring it...Guilt, emotional bruising and a Tiger Moth plane lie at the heart of this story of two misfits. Related with infectious warmth and wit, it is a testament to the essential goodness and resilience of the human spirit.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Grappling with larger-than-life issues of guilt, redemption and forgiveness, Morrall showcases the kind of quirky characters and improbable plotting that made her debut, Astonishing Splashes of Colour, a finalist for Britain's prestigious Booker Prize. Is a 50-something hermit, Peter Straker, responsible for the deaths of 78 people a quarter-century ago, when he crashed his small plane into a moving passenger train? The coroner ruled the crash an accident, but the details are hazy in Peter's memory, part of his former life as a drunken playboy. Eaten by guilt, Peter doesn't speak except to the 78 victims, who now live in his head: "There isn't room in his mind for anyone else." For two years, he has corresponded with the passengers' families under false pretenses, fueling his own guilt and inciting the families to seek him out for revenge. When morose, embittered Imogen Doody, a 40-ish school caretaker and writer, inherits a dilapidated cottage near the decommissioned lighthouse where Peter lives, Peter begins a tentative engagement with the world of the living, pursuing an unlikely relationship with her. Morrall is a deft guide through the landscape of grief, but her artistic prose can distance readers from her characters.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Booker Prize finalist Clare Morrall invites the reader to the Devon coast and into the company of Peter Straker, living in a former working lighthouse, and Imogen Doody, a school caretaker living in a run-down cottage she has inherited in a nearby village. Both Straker and Doody are misfits in their own right. Haunted by their respective pasts and each hiding something, both struggle to come to terms with the tragic events that changed their lives some 24 years ago. Did Straker really kill 78 people? And what is it about seeing a biplane take to the air? Did he once have a pilot's license? Morrall places the reader alone with Straker and Doody, alone with the wind and the sea. Guilt, death, and the impact of premature death on families and friends are at the core of this novel. Straker and Doody's relationship is initially uncomplicated; then it all changes. Readers will remember them painting in silence, the tension of their conversations as it begins to dissipate, and the increasing ease of their presence. Sarah Watstein
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; First Edition, Ex-Library edition (June 13, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060843365
• ISBN-13: 978-0060843366
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,469,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A novel with a bit of everything, August 14, 2006

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Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Natural Flights of the Human Mind: A Novel (P.S.) (Paperback)

Peter Straker lives alone in a lighthouse on the Devon coast. But his mind is full of the voices of 78 people who died in a train wreck almost 25 years ago. Peter feels responsible; he is sure he caused their deaths but isn't certain how. In the lighthouse, as the coast tears away at the shore, he hears their voices, accusations and sometimes even their kindness. Peter lives like a hermit, going to town only for food and supplies and talking to no one. But the arrival of Imogen Doody forces him out of his exile and back into the world of the living.

Clare Morrall's sophomore effort, following ASTONISHING SPLASHES OF COLOUR (a Booker Prize finalist) centers on Peter and Imogen as they navigate a tenuous and emotional relationship that makes each deal with their tragic past and their hopes for the future.

Imogen, or "Doody," is a school caretaker, an angry woman with no friends and a strained relationship with her family. She discovers she has inherited a cottage on the Devon coast from a godfather she never knew. The cottage is a dream come true, a place to be alone with her thoughts and perhaps even finish the novel she half-heartedly has been working on. But the cottage is also a disaster, abandoned and decrepit, and she has neither the money nor the know-how to fix it up. It is her activity in the cottage that attracts Peter, and he talks with his first living person in years when he meets Doody. Her anger flashes again and again and he retreats to his lighthouse again and again, but they eventually come to something of a truce and begin to work on the cottage together.

Over time they open up to each other and discover that both were emotionally scarred and damaged 25 years ago --- Peter with the train wreck and Doody when her husband abandoned her never to be heard from again. Could the events be related? And why does the discovery that Doody has also inherited a small plane make Peter so upset? What happened to Doody's husband, and what happened when Peter last flew a plane almost 25 years ago?

Although Morrall's book is not a mystery, these questions and others haunt the narrative as they do the characters.

NATURAL FLIGHTS OF THE HUMAN MIND is a beautiful, thoughtful and thoroughly successful novel. Morrall's characters seem and act real; while the foundational events are quite extraordinary, Peter and Doody are just normal people who are lonely and guilty and more than a little afraid of relationships and the future.

Morrall's prose is lovely and quite readable. This is serious stuff without being heavy, and character-driven without being dull. And there is resolution without easy answers or clichés. This is also a novel that is creative in its description and use of setting. The lighthouse seems to be crumbling along with the shore as Peter explores the truth of his responsibility and the world at large intrudes upon his solitude. Doody must clear away the years of misuse to find the beauty and functional space in the cottage.

Guilt, grief, family, forgiveness, tragic pasts, drama, an unforgettable setting and uniquely drawn characters --- this novel has it all.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you, Ms Morrall, for your perseverance. I eagerly await more!, January 4, 2007

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Avid Reader (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Natural Flights of the Human Mind: A Novel (P.S.) (Paperback)

After reading Clare Morrall's 'Astonishing Splashes of Colour', which was fantastic, I was thrilled to see this second novel published so soon. I will not review the story line of 'Natural Flights'; you can read a great report already submitted by reviewer [..]on this Amazon site. I will simply say that Clare Morral wrote 4 unpublished novels before these two were published. Someone needs to take a serious look at the others and see if they warrant publication, too. Ms Morrall is a gifted writer and I'd like to thank her for her amazing perseverance. I eagerly await her next book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written, February 25, 2009

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BP (Europe) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Natural Flights of the Human Mind: A Novel (P.S.) (Paperback)

Although the novel deals with tragedy, hurting, and loneliness, it is told in a fluent, smooth manner, with the language never getting too heavy or depressing. The characters are unbelievably real, they feel like your next door neighbors rather than fictional personalities. Worth reading.