Flight : A Novel

From Publishers Weekly Strand peels away layers of tension in a Midwestern family as one of its members prepares for her marriage. Will Gruen grew up on a Michigan farm but got his wings in the Air Force during Vietnam. After 30 years as a TWA pilot, he's staring his mandatory retirement in the face—but he's plotting a way to remain airborne. His wife, Carol, always wanted to be an entrepreneur; her latest grand plan involves turning the family farm into a bed-and-breakfast—with or without Will's consent. But Will and Carol can't act on their plans until they host a wedding for their youngest daughter, Leanne, who's having some unpleasant pre-wedding jitters. Eldest daughter Margaret has always been the most organized family member, but when her precarious open marriage begins to fall apart and her orderly life is threatened, she realizes that she has never really been in control. Through shifting points of view, Strand writes convincingly, if not scintillatingly, of the Gruen family as they face down their demons and reach out for their dreams in this solid debut. Agent, Nat Sobel. (May) Copyright В© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Strand proves herself to be a first-rate storyteller in her debut novel, which takes place in the days leading up to a wedding in rural Michigan. Past and present family trials--from a father's memories of Vietnam to one daughter's impending divorce--are told from the point of view of all four members of the Gruen family: Will, the airline pilot not taking kindly to retirement; his wife, Carol, who fantasizes about starting a bed-and-breakfast; eldest daughter Margaret, a driven academic in an unhappy marriage; and Leanne, the unenthusiastic bride. Strand avoids sentimentality while painting a realistic portrait of family, and of four people who, although they live at such varied paces, circle one another in search of comfort. While the book is set one year after 9/11, that date serves as a sort of fog resting over the lives of Strand's characters. A finely wrought novel about the back-and-forthness of life, Strand's debut, set against a post-9/11, flag-bedecked America, perfectly captures the wearying effects of that motion. Annie Tully Copyright В© American Library Association. All rights reserved In her haunting debut novel, Flight, Ginger Strand creates an unforgettable portrait of a midwestern family navigating an indelibly changed world. Will Gruen loves to fly. As a Michigan farm boy, he longed to clear a furrow through sky, not land. Since then, he has pursued speed and forward motion, from his Air Force service in Vietnam to his thirty years as a commercial pilot for TWA. His passion for flight is matched only by his love for the family farm he considers his personal refuge. But in the aftermath of September 11, Will's world implodes. As he nears mandatory retirement, his beloved airline has collapsed. His wife is turning his farm into a bed-and-breakfast. His older daughter has chosen an open marriage, and her sister has fled seven hundred miles away to New York. Now, with the wedding of their younger daughter approaching, the Gruen family is coming home. Over three emotional days, the past collides with the present, secrets are revealed, new ties are made and old ones broken as each of the Gruens stands at the brink of taking a step that could not only change the path of one life but could alter the family's course. Deftly entwining the voices of Will and his colorful family, Strand creates a dazzling, multilayered chronicle of ordinary Americans in an era of sweeping hange — and of people with only love to keep them aloft in an uncertain world.