Bennie Ford, a fifty-three-year-old failed poet turned translator, is traveling to his estranged daughter’s wedding when his flight is cancelled. Stuck with thousands of fuming passengers in the purgatory of O’Hare airport, he watches the clock tick and realizes that he will miss the ceremony. Frustrated, irate, and helpless, Bennie does the only thing he can: he starts to write a letter. But what begins as a hilariously excoriating demand for a refund soon becomes a cris de coeur of a life misspent, talent wasted. Bennie pens his letter in a voice that is a marvel of lacerating wit, heart-on-sleeve emotion, and wide-ranging erudition—all propelled by the fading hope that if he can just make it to the wedding, he has a chance to do something right in his life.
Dear American Airlines,You may be interested to know that a man named Jonathan Miles has penned a novel that purports to be a letter of complaint to your airline from a man whose flight was cancelled. This missed flight changes Bennie Ford's whole life. Narrator Mark Bramhall quotes the letter, with all its humor and amusing commentary. Clearly, the missed plane is a metaphor for Ford's sad, screwed-up life, which includes a failed marriage and stalled career. Bramhall is so good at storytelling that it's easy to see how the letter can be interpreted as something more than a complaint about a flubbed flight. Instead of complaining about the airline mishap, Ford should be thanking your airline for giving him the opportunity to rethink his life. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly...
“[A] crisp yowl of a first novel...scathing yet oddly joyful…Bennie's command of language as he describes his fellow strandees and his riotous embrace of his own feelings will have readers rooting for him. By the time flights resume, Miles has masterfully taken Bennie from grim resignation to the dazzling exhilaration of the possible.”
About the Author
JONATHAN MILES is the cocktails columnist for the New York Times and the books columnist for Men’s Journal. His work has appeared in GQ, Oxford American, New York Observer, and New York Times Book Review.
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