The Book of Flying - Hardcover

Miller, Keith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1573222496 ISBN 13: 9781573222495

Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover, 2004

Synopsis

When Pico falls in love with one of the winged people in the City by the Sea, the orphaned young librarian embarks on quest to find the mythical Morning Town, a magical place where those like him who are wingless may gain their wings, encountering a variety of unusual characters and learning valuable lessons about life, love, and determination along the way. A first novel.

About this title

About the Author:

Keith Miller is an American who was born in Tanzania, raised in Kenya, and wrote this novel while traveling in southern Sudan. He now lives in Egypt, where he is a design consultant and art teacher at a center for refugees.

From Publishers Weekly:

Solemnly sonorous and emptily pretty, this ersatz quest novel tells how a poet struggles to learn to fly and regain a lost love. In a city where some inhabitants sit in cafes while others fly over the sea, Pico, a wingless poet who works as a librarian, falls in love with one of the winged people. When she eludes Pico's grasp, he despairs until he discovers, hidden near his library, a book telling of a ruined town where he can get his own wings. He immediately sets off for the fabled town, his mission taking him through deep forests into the arms of a lusty, gorgeous robber queen whose charms diminish for the reader when she utters cliches like "It's the ultimate theft, the stealing of another's heartbeat." Other encounters-with a talking rabbit who has compiled many fascinating tomes on local flora; with a young man who, in addition to being the poet's near-spitting image, is a cannibal-bring the poet ever closer to his goal, though each new twist in his journey saps his strength. Wallowing in high-flown whimsy and laughably bad poetry ("His tears have entered every well/ and his semen is the sap of peaches"), the novel rolls along predictably, despite Miller's mix of archetypal fantasy elements (flying people, talking animals, journeys through dark woods) and contemporary detail (the love of cigarettes, ever-present cafes, one city composed largely of booksellers). The downbeat ending skirts the obvious, but little else does in this hot-air-filled debut.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1573222496
• ISBN 13: 9781573222495
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272