Flight
'Emotionally transcendent' – Boston Globe
-
- USD 7.99
-
- USD 7.99
Publisher Description
'Suspenseful, dazzling and moving' Rumaan Alam
'Arresting and powerful' Lily King
'Breathtakingly propulsive and insightful' Leslie Jamison
It’s 22 December and Henry, Kate and Martin are gathering with their partners and children at Henry and Alice’s house in upstate New York. It's the first Christmas since their mother passed and without her ever-present advice and gentle nudges to connect with each other when they need it most, the siblings have grown distant.
Their differences are all too apparent, from the lives they have forged for themselves to what they each want to do with their sole inheritance: their mother’s house. As they try and fail and try again to create new picture-perfect memories, tensions and old resentments rise, but they are forced to unite when a local family calls for help.
Compassionate and wise, Flight explores the meaning of family and home, and the gift of being together.
Praise for Lynn Steger Strong
‘Furious, aching and razor sharp’ Emma Cline
‘A deeply intelligent and sneakily moving novel about having the ground fall away beneath your feet. Strong ingeniously undercuts conventional wisdom about what it means to be a success in this world’ Jenny Offill
‘A defining novel of our age of left-behind families... as if Anne Helen Peterson's viral burnout article and John Steinbeck's oeuvre had a baby’ Vulture
‘Elizabeth's anxious, raw voice ties these threads together, coalescing into a story about the price women pay for craving what's just out of reach’ Time magazine
‘Through Elizabeth's experiences and in her propulsive voice, the novel explores race, class, privilege, coincidence, family, friendship and love’ Guardian
‘A smart, sharp novel’ Elle
‘Strong strips away at the imbalance of advantages that ultimately injure us all and the collisions that never cease. Yet, in this stunning novel, she never loses sight of the irrepressible desire to love, connect and forgive one another’ Observer
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Three siblings gather with their spouses and children for a fraught Christmas in Strong's delicate latest (after Want). Martin, the eldest, is a disgraced college professor married to ruthless lawyer Tess. Henry is an artist married to artist turned social worker Alice. Kate, the youngest, is a stay-at-home mom married to the useless Josh, who has recently come to the end of a once considerable inheritance. Everyone gathers at Henry and Alice's house in upstate New York; it's their first Christmas together since their mother, Helen, died eight months earlier. Tensions rise: Kate wants to live in Helen's house in Florida until her kids are off to college, but she needs her brothers to agree. Henry and Alice can't have kids; the other two families are knee-deep in child-rearing, and, meanwhile, Alice is inappropriately attached to a child named Maddie, one of her clients. A disappearance midway through amplifies the plot, but the theme of grief takes center stage, as Helen's memory permeates the gathering. Strong is adept as characterizing this loss in all its manifestations, and in rendering the challenges inherent in three families trying to celebrate together; upon arrival, Tess "wishes this visit were over." Of course, the drama and fully formed characters make readers feel otherwise. Once again, Strong demonstrates her talents for perception and nuance.
