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Flight

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

""Arresting and powerful, Flight examines the possibility and pain of fierce love and hope in our time of looming existential threats." — Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers

""Suspenseful, dazzling and moving." — Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind

It's December twenty-second and siblings Henry, Kate, and Martin have converged with their spouses on Henry's house in upstate New York. This is the first Christmas the siblings are without their mother, the first not at their mother's Florida house. Over the course of the next three days, old resentments and instabilities arise as the siblings, with a gaggle of children afoot, attempt to perform familiar rituals, while also trying to decide what to do with their mother's house, their sole inheritance. As tensions rise, the whole group is forced to come together unexpectedly when a local mother and daughter need help.

With the urgency and artfulness that cemented her previous novel Want as "a defining novel of our age" (Vulture), Strong once again turns her attention to the structural and systemic failings that are haunting Americans, but also to the ways in which family, friends, and strangers can support each other through the gaps. Flight is a novel of family, ambition, precarity, art, and desire, one that forms a powerful next step from a brilliant chronicler of our time.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 8, 2022
      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. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Arriving just in time for the holiday season is this relatable family story of three adult siblings, Martin, Kate and Henry, and their respective spouses and children, who spend the three days before Christmas at Henry's upstate New York home. Narrator Andi Arndt beautifully expresses the complicated inner life of each character, as well as the bonds and tensions that exist among them. Listeners will feel as though they are eavesdropping on the family as they grapple with grief over the loss of a parent, marital strife, financial woes, and career upsets. Arndt's characterizations of males and females are equally skilled, and her pacing varies with the momentum of the narrative. This quietly absorbing family drama is perfect for this time of year. M.J. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      March 1, 2023

      Strong (Want, Hold Still) reveals the effects of grief and long-held resentments on three siblings as they spend a first Christmas together after their mother's passing. Judging themselves, each other, and each other's children, the siblings and their spouses ruminate about life's disappointments, which seem particularly sharp this year. Andi Arndt deftly narrates each as they reminisce, distinguishing personality through inflection and tone. When sister-in-law Alice's social work client Quinn calls in crisis--her daughter Maddie is missing--the family launches a search. Quinn and Maddie's lonely Christmas, under threat of separation by CPS if anyone reported that Quinn was still using and had lost Maddie, contrasts starkly with the holiday gathering. Arndt ramps up the emotional volatility as Maddie's disappearance strains already-tense relationships, all the while voicing Quinn with a youthful resignation that highlights how much harder she's had it. Strong never condemns her characters' yearning for fulfillment or experiencing loss while others have less, though their healing only begins when they remember their mother's generosity and help as she would have. VERDICT Sentimental without mawkishness, this seasonal listen will appeal to fans of Emma Straub.--Lauren Kage

      Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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