Sky Daddy
A Novel
-
- USD 11.99
-
- USD 11.99
Publisher Description
“[A] bizarre and endearing debut . . . We can’t remember the last time we met a character this singular or read a book this funny.”—Oprah Daily (Best New Books to Read This Spring)
“Sleek and darkly comical . . . with the melancholic wit and whimsy of Miranda July.”—The Boston Globe
Cross the jet bridge with Linda, a frequent flyer with an unusual obsession, in this “audaciously imagined and surprisingly tender” (Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch) debut novel by the acclaimed author of Out There.
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, Oprah Daily, Vulture, Publishers Weekly, Electric Lit, Debutiful, Book Riot, The Skinny • LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE
Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges her true passion, taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant, because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could. . . .
Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes. Nor can she reveal her belief that it’s her destiny to “marry” one of her suitors, uniting with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.
Both subversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Folk (Out There, a story collection) fuses Moby-Dick with J.G. Ballard's Crash for a blistering debut novel about a woman's sexual and mortal obsession with airplanes. "Call me Linda," begins the narrator, who rides the AirTrain around San Francisco's airport to lust after fuselage and marvel at wingspans when she's not busy toiling as a content moderator for a social media platform. Her job entails training the AI that will eventually replace her, but she's not worried about the future, so long as she can fulfill her dream of "marriage" to a plane (she hopes to consummate her passion with a "big boy" passenger jet in a fiery crash, "a carnage that would meld our souls for eternity"). Recognizing that her plan might take time, given the low probability of plane crashes and her limited funds for air travel, she tries dating pilots, the next best thing, and her spirits briefly soar after she finds pilotdate.net. Unfortunately, her only matches are bots and imposters, causing her to swear off men in favor of a plane's "aluminum embrace." Still, while on a flight to Houston, she's turned on enough by the jet's "girthy central spine" to fool around with her ketamine-addled colleague Dave, and their actions have surprising and farcical consequences. The allure of an inanimate object has seldom been so touchingly rendered than in Folk's wry, tender, and sweetly odd narrative. It's an unforgettable ode to the pursuit of desire.
