  | Book Details Title: Dear Edward: A Novel |
Book DescriptionAmazon.com Review There are some books whose descriptions defy their own power. Dear Edward, at least from my point of view, is one such novel. The premise is stark: the aftermath of a plane crash that killed 191 souls on board except a young boy named Edward. And the structure is somewhat expected: it shifts in time between after the crash and the cross-country flight that ended in devastation. But to view Dear Edward by its plot points and form only hints at the emotions one might experience while reading. So let me tell you this, Ann Napolitano’s novel made me breathe deep with heartbreak and made me cry—I mean cry-in-public cry. But, it also made me laugh out loud and marvel at the resiliency of the human heart and the power that one person’s friendship can have on another—no matter the age. This is a novel that is more than the sum of its parts and, despite the necessity of tissues, is a joy to read. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Book Review Read more Review “A surprisingly uplifting story, full of hope and dry humor, with an underlying, noncloying message about the decency of strangers.”—The New York Times Book Review “A harrowing yet ultimately optimistic story about the sole survivor of a plane crash.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “A haunting novel that’s a masterful study in suspense, grief and survival . . . Napolitano’s fearless examination of what took place models a way forward for all of us. She takes care not to sensationalize, presenting even the most harrowing scenes in graceful, understated prose, and gives us a powerful book about living a meaningful life during the most difficult of times.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) “Transportative . . . Make sure you have tissues handy when you read Ann Napolitano’s Dear Edward, a sure-footed tearjerker.”—NPR “Exquisite . . . an insightful and moving testament to the indomitability of the human spirit.”—People“Ann Napolitano’s new novel is the best book about a young person I’ve read since Emma Donoghue’s Room, and if there’s any justice in the world, it’s going to be a phenomenon: outstanding storytelling, great writing, absolutely The Real Deal.”—John Boyne, bestselling author of The Heart’s Invisible Furies “Dear Edward isn’t just a beautiful novel, clear-eyed and compassionate even as it pulls us into difficult terrain. It’s an examination of what makes us human, how we survive in this mysterious world, how we take care of each other. It’s the kind of book that forces you to trust that the author, who will break your heart, will also lead you toward something wondrous, something profound. After this brilliant novel, I will follow Ann Napolitano to the ends of the earth.”—Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here “This is a stunning novel of courage and connection in the face of unimaginable loss. It’s beautifully written, with characters so intensely alive you will hold your breath as they break your heart—an extraordinary read.”—Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand “From its breathtaking premise—a boy is the sole survivor of an airplane crash—to its absolutely rhapsodic finish, Dear Edward is about the persistence of hope, the depth of love, and the unexpected, radiant moments that make up our lives. If I loved this stunning novel any more, I’d have to marry it.”—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World “I loved Dear Edward so, so much. It made me laugh and weep. So many times I had to stop after reading a paragraph to acknowledge the beauty of Ann Napolitano’s writing. In Edward, his friend Shay, and the passengers on the airplane, Napolitano offers unforgettable characters, people you know you will miss after you’ve turned the book’s last page. Magnificent!”—Lily King, author of Euphoria“Contains real bite [and] authenticity . . . Edward’s path to finding purpose and connection is realized with an affecting, quiet empathy.”—Entertainment Weekly “A delicate story of one boy’s physical and psychological recovery . . . Napolitano captures the subtle shades of Edward’s spirit like the earliest intimations of dawn. . . . Persistently lovely . . . one of the most touching stories you’re likely to read in the new year.”—The Washington Post“Stunning . . . In this life-affirming tale, the downright unbearable blossoms into a testament to the power of love and grace.”—Vogue“Napolitano weaves Edward’s devastating post-crash experience with heart-pounding chapters set during the final hours and minutes of the flight. Though there’s so much tragedy and loss in this novel, there is also a lot of hope.”—Real Simple, “The Best Books of 2020 (So Far)”“A poignant novel about grief and hope.” —Marie Claire“This haunting story of how one young man copes with the unthinkable cards life has dealt him is heartbreaking, insightful, and altogether unforgettable.”—Town & Country“A twelve-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a Los Angeles–bound plane crash. If this premise doesn’t hook you, the prose will. And the flight is filled with a Lost-esque cast of characters that make the fatal crash even more devastating.”—TheSkimm Read more About the Author Ann Napolitano is the author of the novels A Good Hard Look and Within Arm’s Reach. She is also the associate editor of One Story literary magazine. She received an MFA from New York University and has taught fiction writing at Brooklyn College’s MFA program, New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and Gotham Writers Workshop. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children. Read more Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. June 12, 20137:45 a.m.Newark Airport is shiny from a recent renovation. There are potted plants at each joint of the security line, to keep passengers from realizing how long they’ll have to wait. People prop themselves against walls or sit on suitcases. They all woke up before dawn; they exhale loudly, sputtering with exhaustion.When the Adler family reaches the front of the line, they load their computers and shoes into trays. Bruce Adler removes his belt, rolls it up, and slots it neatly beside his brown loafers in a gray plastic bin. His sons are messier, throwing sneakers on top of laptops and wallets. Laces hang over the side of their shared tray, and Bruce can’t stop himself from tucking the loose strands inside.The large rectangular sign beside them reads: All wallets, keys, phones, jewelry, electronic devices, computers, tablets, metal objects, shoes, belts, and food must go into the security bins. All drink and contraband must be thrown away.Bruce and Jane Adler flank their twelve-year-old son, Eddie, as they approach the screening machine. Their fifteen-year-old son, Jordan, hangs back until his family has gone through.Jordan says to the officer manning the machine: “I want to opt out.”The officer gives him a look. “What’d you say?”The boy shoves his hands in his pockets and says, “I want to opt out of going through the machine.”The officer yells, apparently to the room at large: “We’ve got a male O-P-T!”“Jordan,” his father says, from the far side of the tunnel. “What are you doing?”The boy shrugs. “This is a full-body backscatter, Dad. It’s the most dangerous and least effective screening machine on the market. I’ve read about it and I’m not going through it.”Bruce, who is ten yards away and knows he won’t be allowed to go back through the scanner to join his son, shuts his mouth. He doesn’t want Jordan to say another word.“Step to the side, kid,” the officer says. “You’re holding up traffic.”After the boy has complied, the officer says, “Let me tell you, it’s a whole lot easier and more pleasant to go through this machine than to have that guy over there pat you down. Those patdowns are thorough, if you know what I mean.”The boy pushes hair off his forehead. He’s grown six inches in the last year and is whippet thin. Like his mother and brother, he has curly hair that grows so quickly he can’t keep it in check. His father’s hair is short and white. The white arrived when Bruce was twenty-seven, the same year Jordan was born. Bruce likes to point at his head and say to his son, Look what you did to me. The boy is aware that his father is staring intently at him now, as if trying to deliver good sense through the air.Jordan says, “There are four reasons I’m not going through this machine. Would you like to hear them?”The security officer looks amused. He’s not the only one paying attention to the boy now; the passengers around him are all listening.“Oh God,” Bruce says, under his breath.Eddie Adler slips his hand into his mother’s, for the first time in at least a year. Watching his parents pack for this move from New York to Los Angeles—the Grand Upheaval, his father called it—gave him an upset stomach. He feels his insides grumble now and wonders if there’s a bathroom nearby. He says, “We should have stayed with him.”“He’ll be okay,” Jane says, as much to herself as to her son. Her husband’s gaze is fixed on Jordan, but she can’t bear to look. Instead, she focuses on the tactile pleasure of her child’s hand in hers. She has missed this. So much could be solved, she thinks, if we simply held hands with each other more often.The officer puffs out his chest. “Hit me, kid.”Jordan raises his fingers, ready to count. “One, I prefer to limit my exposure to radiation. Two, I don’t believe this technology prevents terrorism. Three, I’m grossed out that the government wants to take pictures of my balls. And four”—he takes a breath—“I think the pose the person is forced to take inside the machine—hands up, like they’re being mugged—is designed to make them feel powerless and degraded.”The TSA agent is no longer smiling. He glances around. He’s not sure if this boy is making a fool of him.Crispin Cox is in a wheelchair parked nearby, waiting for security to swab his chair for explosives. The old man has been stewing about this. Swab his wheelchair for explosives! If he had any spare breath in his lungs at all, he would refuse. Who do these idiots think they are? Who do they think he is? Isn’t it bad enough that he has to sit in this chair and travel with a nurse? He growls, “Give the boy his goddamn pat-down.”The old man has been issuing demands for decades and is almost never disobeyed. The tenor of his voice breaks the agent’s indecision like a black belt’s hand through a board. He points Jordan toward another officer, who tells him to spread his legs and stick out his arms. His family watches in dismay as the man moves his hand roughly between the boy’s legs.“How old are you?” the officer asks, when he pauses to readjust his rubber gloves.“Fifteen.”He makes a sour face. “Hardly ever get kids doing this.”“Who do you get?”“Hippies, mostly.” He thinks for a moment. “Or people who used to be hippies.”Jordan has to force his body to be still. The agent is feeling along the waistline of his jeans, and it tickles. “Maybe I’ll be a hippie when I grow up.”“I’m finished, fifteen,” the man says. “Get out of here.”Jordan is smiling when he rejoins his family. He takes his sneakers from his brother. “Let’s get going,” Jordan says. “We don’t want to miss our flight.”“We’ll talk about that later,” Bruce says.The two boys lead the way down the hall. There are windows in this corridor, and the skyscrapers of New York City are visible in the distance—man-made mountains of steel and glass piercing a blue sky. Jane and Bruce can’t help but locate the spot where the Twin Towers used to be, the same way the tongue finds the hole where a tooth was pulled. Their sons, who were both toddlers when the towers fell, accept the skyline as it is.“Eddie,” Jordan says, and the two boys exchange a look.The brothers are able to read each other effortlessly; their parents are often mystified to find that Jordan and Eddie have conducted an entire conversation and come to a decision without words. They’ve always operated as a unit and done everything together. In the last year, though, Jordan has been pulling away. The way he says his brother’s name now means: I’m still here. I’ll always come back.Eddie punches his brother in the arm and runs ahead.Jane walks gingerly. The hand dropped by her younger son tingles at her side.At the gate, there is more waiting to do. Linda Stollen, a young woman dressed all in white, hurries into a pharmacy. Her palms are sweaty, and her heart thumps like it’s hoping to find a way out. Her flight from Chicago arrived at midnight, and she’d spent the intervening hours on a bench, trying to doze upright, her purse cradled to her chest. She’d booked the cheapest flight possible—hence the detour to Newark—and informed her father on the way to the airport that she would never ask him for money again. He had guffawed, even slapped his knee, like she’d just told the funniest joke he’d ever heard. She was serious, though. At this moment, she knows two things: One, she will never return to Indiana, and two, she will never ask her father and his third wife for anything, ever again.This is Linda’s second pharmacy visit in twenty-four hours. She reaches into her purse and touches the wrapper of the pregnancy test she bought in South Bend. This time, she chooses a celebrity magazine, a bag of chocolate candies, and a diet soda and carries them to the cashier.Crispin Cox snores in his wheelchair, his body a gaunt origami of skin and bones. Occasionally, his fingers flutter, like small birds struggling to take flight. His nurse, a middle-aged woman with bushy eyebrows, files her fingernails in a seat nearby.Jane and Bruce sit side by side in blue airport chairs and argue, although no one around them would suspect it. Their faces are unflustered, their voices low. Their sons call this style of parental fight “DEFCON 4,” and it doesn’t worry them. Their parents are sparring, but it’s more about communication than combat. They are reaching out, not striking.Bruce says, “That was a dangerous situation.”Jane shakes her head slightly. “Jordan is a kid. They wouldn’t have done anything to him. He was within his rights.”“You’re being naïve. He was mouthing off, and this country doesn’t take kindly to that, regardless of what the Constitution claims.”“You taught him to speak up.” Read more Customers Review: It can take years to learn to deal with memories, good ones are a no brainer, it is the traumatic, the tragic memories that burn into your soul. In this novel we travel with Bruce as he lives out his memories with us. On a day, Bruce and his brother, Jordan, and his mom and dad are flying to California where his mom will start a new job .This is the job of a lifetime, and as they all get on the plane, after Jordan has had his song and dance about going through the Newark Airport’s body scanner, the family is happy, off to a new start.As the flight progresses, they meet some of the 188 passengers and flight attendants, when suddenly over Colorado, the airplane goes down. Bruce, 12, at the time is the only survivor. He had been found still strapped this seat shouting, ‘I am her, I am here,’ After a time in hospital, he goes to a new home of an aunt and uncle he hardly knows. He is ensconced In an old nursery that had never been used. It was uncomfortable, and Bruce was not able to sleep in this room. He struck up a friendship with a girl next door, Shay, and slept in her house until he was a teenager.We are with Bruce throughout this time, his PTSD, his reactions to the loss of his family, particularly! Jordan,, his brother. He lives day to day to day, the best he can. The author has developed a process of present day with Bruce, then back to the passengers on the plane. We learn about their past lives, the gay soldier, the beautiful flight attendant who lived for the significant looks from other people, a woman who remembered past lives. In this manner the characters do come alive, particularly when Bruce receives the hundreds of letters from relatives of the passengers who died. Bruce is their closest memory of the people they loved. All of these memories help Bruce to recover physically from his injuries, but most importantly emotionally. Shay becomes the presence he needs by his side.This is a book of such severe consequences for so many people. The characters are all part of the healing, and they give credence to the back stories and emotions that envelop and overwhelm Bruce at times. Trying to clear his head through this fog, gives Bruce purpose, and it gives us understanding. A timely book for all of us who have suffered anxiety and despair particularly through this time, but also a pathway to the future.Recommended. prisrob 01-06-2020 | |
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