Swimming in Sky: A Novel [Hardcover]

Inman Majors (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2000

Twenty-five-year-old Jason Sayer has lost his nerve. An unemployed Vanderbilt graduate who’s temporarily taken up residence with his mother and her live-in boyfriend, Jason is adrift in the summery haze of suburban Knoxville. The narrative spans four months in Jason’s life shortly after his return from a disillusioning journey to Australia in search of himself. Compounding his sense of undefined gloom is a recent ill-timed acid trip that has left him estranged from old friends, wary of their intentions toward him. Two generations off the farm, living in what he calls a “strip mall world,” Jason grapples with his past as he searches for a way to make sense of the present and recapture his old confidence.

In a witty, subversive voice, Jason traces the limits of the frayed formality of the New South, casting light on youthful aspirations lost and found. Fast-paced and funny, Majors’s debut novel explores a twenty-something’s reading of fractured family relationships, the raveling edges of friendships, and what’s left of traditional spirituality in his life.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This accomplished first novel concerns a very likable young man named Jason Sayer. Recently graduated from college and just back from an ill-fated trip to Australia, where he had hoped to "find himself," Jason returns to his mother's home in Tennessee seeking comfort, familiarity, and a safe place to figure out what to do with his life. Unfortunately, Jason's return to the town where he grew up proves more problematic than he had anticipated. His mother is in the process of separating from her live-in boyfriend; his old friends are living shallow, dissolute lives devoted almost entirely to recreational drug use; and his ex-girlfriends all seem to have answers that he doesn't. These circumstances provide abundant opportunities for Jason to learn and grow, and by the novel's end Jason has, indeed, achieved a new sense of purpose and maturity. Majors tells this engaging story with considerable insight and compassion. Recommended for all libraries.DPatrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

“In Majors’s novel, it is as though the Catcher met Cather in the wry.”—Mary Hood

“It’s as if Holden Caulfield has grown up, but not been much changed, as if his intensity has become southern, rather than northeastern. Full of dazzling energy. There’s a deep human truth in this story.”—Liza Wieland

“Swimming in Sky is remarkable for its craftsmanship; Majors’s insights into human relations and youth are a jolt of truth.”—Janice Daugharty

“A fine read, with moments as memorable (and true) as those from the keyboards of Denis Johnson and Thom Jones. This is a book with a wallop. It could be the definitive ‘slacker’ novel.”—Lee K. Abbott

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 241 pages
• Publisher: Southern Methodist University Press; 1st edition (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870744550
• ISBN-13: 978-0870744556
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,883,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Swimming in Sky - savor it twice, November 2, 2000

By 

Barbara McDonald (Madison, MS United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Swimming in Sky: A Novel (Hardcover)

"Swimming in Sky" is one of those simple, yet complicated, works that can be read and appreciated on several levels. First, it's a great quick read that will unceasingly amuse and most likely stir up personal memories for anyone who has ever drowned in the inertia of not knowing what to do in life, who has suffered through too many fake family Christmases whether they result from divorce or overexpectations, who has wondered how to make a living from that "good as gold BA," who as a parent cannot fathom how your child got so mixed up much less know how to help, who has ever been strung out on drugs or even just a little drunk, or who has opted to swim in sky instead of conform to suburban normality. The novel will be a special bonus to those familiar with Knoxville, TN, where life is a split-level house or those who have ever had the thrill of watching one of the Majors clan play or coach football in the South, where as we all know, football is a religion.

On the first reading, you can't help but laugh at and with Jason, the 25-year-old unemployed Vandy graduate who just can't get his life going, no thanks to his druggy friends and despite the gentle urgings of his way more than tolerant family. Throughout the book after laughing out loud at Jason's irreverent, yet endearing, witticisms, the next scene will be so poignant and all too real that you have to just put the book down and enfold the characters in your heart in hopes of repairing their shatteredness.

A second, more fastidious reading will yield a deep appreciation of and admiration for the descriptive craft of this debut novelist. The absence of quotation marks in the dialogue perfectly mirrors Jason's free-flowing lifestyle. The depth at which Jason's relationships with family members (especially the males) are teasingly unfolded bit by bit is masterful. The most powerful scenes are when the present becomes the future and past all at once such as when Jason remembers in his blood things that happened before he was born.

A third depth at which the book can provide plenty for the reader as well as Jason to chew on is the spiritual level, rich with symbolism and religious references. Jason, who's not fully aware he is even on a spiritual journey, at times furtively turns to the Bible and prayer. After a bad acid trip on Good Friday, he is haunted with trying to figure out who is Judas and who is Jesus in his life and why will watering his friend's flowers heal him. He wrestles with the issues of free will vs fate, God's commission vs the gift of grace, why God allows handicaps and disease. He struggles with the mysterious symbolism of the cross, Peter the rock of the church vs Peter the bartender vs Peter his brother, a behemoth yard, Lazarus back from the dead, the Prince of Peace, the Samaritans and 666 sprayed painted in graffiti.

The ending leaves plenty of room for a sequel - will Jason ever figure out what is the Golden Fleece he so desires? Will there be a Medea to capture his heart? We can only hope there is more to come from this most talented new author.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Voice of Place and Generation, November 1, 2000

By 

Linda C. Rollins (Manchester, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Swimming in Sky: A Novel (Hardcover)

Inman Majors, in this his debut novel, captures in Jason Sayer the voice of a generation. Sayer embodies the lethary and aimlessness that appear to characterize the 1970's and 1980's. Say, one of Jason's nicknames, "says" much about himself and those around him.

Majors'descriptions of Knoxville, particularly West Knoxville, plant the reader in southern suburbia. I have really read no one in recent times who captures the culture and soul of surburban America as well as Majors.

If you are a University of Tennesse graduate or have ever lived in Knoxville, you will find this book moving and entertaining. Majors includes all the familiar haunts: the Strip, Old Town, assorted bars, and of course the shadow of UT football. Readers will identify with Jason and his friends on forays in Knoxville and to Atlanta (the classic road trip).

Majors deliberately omits the use of any quotation marks, at first an upsetting style to this reviewer, but the more I read, the more I identified the style with Jason's voice, and I began to swim in sky with him.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars In the dark night of the soul, it's always 3 am., October 20, 2000

By 

Scott (Mt Pleasant, SC, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Swimming in Sky: A Novel (Hardcover)

The title of this review is taken from an aging Scott Fitzgerald, looking back to the worst years of his struggles with alcoholism and depression. Majors' novel very much deals with a dark night of the soul for 25 year old Jason "Say" Sayers, a Vanderbilt grad who is having a hard time getting his life together. Unable to progress in relationships (romantic and platonic), struggling at an almost subconscious level with the limits of faith and spirituality, failing to throw off the deep malaise brought on by an acid trip gone seriously wrong, living with his Mother and her alcoholic (though kind) boyfriend, this novel is a manifesto for everyone who has ever failed to live up to either his potential or his ambitions, for everyone who has seen the spreading paths of possibility as daunting instead of inspiring. On a more specific level, wry, observant, cynical Say's had a rough time these last couple of years, and he doesn't know who he can trust. He's beginning to suspect that his friends (even his oldest, best friends) don't want to support him; they want to drag him down with them. He's in the throes of a dark, tangible depression that literally comes on him like a shadow creature from some Lovecraftian dream. Maybe Beth, the old flame-that-never-was from high school, can pull him out of it, or maybe his brother can, or the memory of his kind grandfather, or even the example set by Tom in his own struggle with ennui and an unfair world. One way or another, it's worth strapping into the shotgun seat and enjoying the ride with this Knoxvillian hybrid of Salinger, Kerouac, and Cormac McCarthy.