Customer Reviews

Swimming in Sky: A Novel

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"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.

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.

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.

Swimming in Sky is one of the most powerful and endearing novels I have read, if not because of its vivid writing and convincing style, then because of the universal appeal of its main character, Jason Sayer. A highly likeable and witty 25-year-old, Sayer struggles through post-college unemployment on a compelling journey to find out who and what he is and where he fits in in this "strip mall" world. The first-person narrative is disarmingly honest and funny, and Majors brilliantly brings feelings of youthful anxiety and quiet optimism to life on paper. Majors is an extremely talented and gifted writer, and his debut novel is destined to be a classic.

Inman Majors has endowed his narrator with extraordinary storytelling powers. As the name suggests, Jason Sayer knows how to testify. He guides us through the landscape of an emerging "new Knoxville" with searing wit and a devastating insight that carries the hope and understanding of true compassion.

Say, as he's known by certain friends, is unsure what to do next. He's a Vandy grad, but only has a liberal arts degree to show for it. As the novel opens, he has informally moved in with his mother and her boyfriend, following a trip to Australia that failed to shed light on which path he ought to pursue. Further complicating this twenty-five year-old's identity quest is a recent bad acid trip that seems to have brought about the material realization of Sayer's own peculiar stock of nightmares. Having been reared with a family legacy of UT football heroism, he now feels the ubiquitous presence of a shadow following him around. Growing increasingly paranoid and suspcious in the company of the friends he grew up with, he's troubled by a comment one of them made about Judas. Paging through the Bible for spiritual guidance one moment, the next Sayer treads in fear of the very sky itself, worrying by turns that its birds are either messenger angels or Satan's avengers.

To top it off, this childhood jock now has a bum knee and no health insurance. The knee serves as the physical manifestation of what separates Sayer from other "slacker" protagonists. Unlike the paralysis we often encounter in that character type, here we have a protagonist that for the most part has retained his abilities of locomotion. He's just a little gimpy, which signals how hard he must work to cross the road his spiritual journey requires.

Through Sayer's thoroughly engaging voice, Majors leads us on an odyssey that provides a complex and stratified view of suburbia. It is not simply rendered as generic and bland, as it has been in other books, in less capable hands. Swimming Sky sharply delineates one type of subdivision from another, in a refreshing turn of attention to accuracy. Overall the sense of place Majors achieves is staggering, as he takes us to jock watering holes, alternative clubs and west Knoxville suburbia, just to name a few memorable locations.

I could say more because this is really good stuff. But check it out and find out for yourself. Majors gets it right.

Inman Majors' characters are caught in the peculiar place between suburbia, the Tennessee hills, and the dubious urbanity of Knoxville, Tennessee. Through the eyes of Jason Sayer, main character and narrator, they walk through the world with bewilderment, anger, and most importantly, senses of humor intact. In particular, Jason's (Say's) perspective on his sometimes nightmarish world is marked with a skewed, self-deprecating humor that renders him likable, intelligent, and trustworthy as a narrator. He is on a quest to come to terms with a universal inertia that many of us have felt, at different times of life, in different parts of the world. Major's achievement is that he's put us in a particular place by using vivid writing and great detail, from the description of the sluggish Tennessee River "running" through downtown Knoxville to the college punk bars of the 1980s to a nighmarish, drug-addled road trip to Atlanta. He creates a varied cast of characters (even the dog is great) that will stay with you long after you've finished the book. Strong characterization and sense of place, good pacing, strong narrative voice, compelling plot, "Swimming in Sky" is the complete package.

Anyone who has lost a loved one before their time is liable to feel violated when another trespasses upon their grief. What I think those close to "Sweet" need to remember, however, is that the character in the novel is a fictionalization of the real-life "Sweet," someone whom both the narrator and the author remember very fondly. The book is not about Sweet, it is about Jason Sayers, and in his own turbulent time, Sweet seemed to be more of a father figure to Jason than his own father.
When reading, we sometimes mistake a flawed character for one that is unsympathetic. It is important to remember that those flaws are what makes the characters real, the flaws are why we love them. Obviously, the reviewer's father was very important to Majors, and when Majors fictionalized this time in his life, he needed to include Sweet. To depict Sweet as two-dimensionally perfect would be an injustice to both the reader and the man. If, indeed, you want to view this book as being about Sweet (which it is not), it is a fond memorial, not a scathing expose. I only hope that passing time and a careful re-reading will help you recognize that.

When I opened this novel, it was almost midnight; I had intended to read only a few pages before I turned in for the evening. Around sunrise the next morning, I put down the book, which I had finished: once I had begun reading it, I had no desire to stop. It's difficult to describe exactly what it is that makes this novel so compelling, or its ending so moving. A second reading will enable me to discern more specifically the distinguishing features of Majors's literary talent, which is abundant, and to write a more detailed review. For now, though, I wanted simply to post a short review encouraging prospective readers to experience this novel for themselves. As one who teaches literature to college students, has a doctorate in literary studies, and--most importantly--loves great literature, I enthusiastically recommend Swimming in Sky. It is an unusally impressive, and impressively unusual, piece of fiction, and its author undoubtedly has a great literary career ahead of him.

What a fine book.

Sometimes a novel will grab you, keep you up nights, impact your life. "Swimming in Sky" is all of this.

I have this crazy idea that one reads a particular book at a particular time, that the book and the experience will comment on something needing to be pondered. This happened to me during my reading of "Swimming in Sky."

And, even if you don't need all that introspection, this is a heck of a tale. Best book I've read this year, even better than Majors' current novel.

When I opened this novel, it was almost midnight; I had intended to read only a few pages before I turned in for the evening. Around sunrise the next morning, I put down the book, which I had finished: once I had begun reading it, I had no desire to stop. It's difficult to describe exactly what it is that makes this novel so compelling, or its ending so moving. A second reading will enable me to discern more specifically the distinguishing features of Majors's literary talent, which is abundant, and to write a more detailed review. For now, though, I wanted simply to post a short review encouraging prospective readers to experience this novel for themselves. As one who teaches literature to college students, has a doctorate in literary studies, and--most importantly--loves great literature, I enthusiastically recommend Swimming in Sky. It is an unusally impressive, and impressively unusual, piece of fiction, and its author undoubtedly has a great literary career ahead of him.