Flight of Passage - Hardcover

Buck, Rinker

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786861002 ISBN 13: 9780786861002

Publisher: Hyperion, 1997

Synopsis

In the summer of 1966, Rinker and Kernahan Buck, two teenaged boys from New Jersey, bought a dilapidated Piper Cub for $300, rebuilt it, and piloted it on a record-breaking flight across America, navigating all the way to California without a radio, because they couldn't afford one. Their trip retraced a mythical route flown by their father, Tom Buck, a brash, colorful ex-barstormer who had lost a leg in a tragic air crash before his sons were born, but who so loved the adventure of flight that he taught his boys to fly before they could drive. The journey west, and the preparations for it, become a figurative and literal process of discovery, as the young men battle thunderstorms and wracking turbulence and encounter Arkansas rednecks, Texas cowboys, and the languid, romantic culture of small town cafes, cheap motels, and dusty landing strips of pre-Vietnam America. The brothers have a lot of resolve among themselves, too--as Kern, the meticulous, dedicated visionary, and Rinker, the rebellious second son, must finally come to understand and depend on each other in the complex way that only brothers can. Most of all, FLIGHT OF PASSAGE is a timeless story of fathers and sons. These two young men must separate from their difficult, quirky father--literally by putting a country's distance between them--but they do it on their father's terms: in an airplane. As he looks back from the perspective of now being a father himself, Rinker Buck's tale of two young men in search of themselves and their country becomes a book about the eternal enigma of family--of the distance and closeness of generations, of peace lost so that understanding can be gained--and it is explored with a storytelling power that is both brave and rare.

About this title

Review:

Writer Rinker Buck looks back more than 30 years to a summer when he and his brother, at ages 15 and 17 respectively, became the youngest duo to fly across America, from New Jersey to California. Having grown up in an aviation family, the two boys bought an old Piper Cub, restored it themselves, and set out on the grand journey. Buck is a great storyteller, and once you get airborne with the boys you find yourself absorbed in a story of adventure and family drama. And Flight of Passage is also an affecting look back to the summer of 1966, when the times seemed much less cynical and adventures much more enjoyable.

From the Inside Flap:

keeps a secret, an episode from their past, hidden inside until maturity and their advancing powers conspire to bring it out; and that is certainly what happened with journalist Rinker Buck's Flight of Passage. Part adventure tale, part literary memoir, Flight of Passage is the
story of how two brothers resolved their differences and proved themselves to their father through a mythical odyssey across America.

In 1966, Rinker and Kernahan Buck, 15 and 17, bought a dilapidated Piper Cub for $300, rebuilt it in their barn, and then took off for California, making
headlines across the country as "the youngest aviators ever to fly America coast-to-coast."  Buck movingly recreates the pre-Vietnam America of cheap strip motels and dusty landing strips, the perilous crossing of the Rockies and the Arizona deserts in a fragile plane without a radio, narrating a classic tale of the Sixties.  But Flight of Passage is a

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0786861002
• ISBN 13: 9780786861002
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368