As High as the Scooter Can Fly - Hardcover

Nirgad, Lia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1585673137 ISBN 13: 9781585673131

Publisher: The Overlook Press, 2002

Synopsis

Written with soft-pedaled irony, captivating charm, and tremendous heart, Lia Nirgad's "As High as the Scooter Can Fly" will seduce fans of Alice Hoffman, Angela Carter, and "The Little Prince"-it is the perfect grown-up fairy-tale.
Stuck in a small suburban house, with three daughters and an impressively dull husband who leaves her frozen inside, Layla dreams of far-off lands and a more fabulous life, asking herself, as Peggy Lee did, "Is That All There Is?" (But don't we all sometimes ?!) With fairy tale logic, her wish for travel makes it so-if you don't ask you don't get-and she discovers in her backyard a flying scooter, covered by vines, dead leaves, and lots of dust. And of course, if you remember your dream and brush off the dead leaves and dust and untangle the vines, things can start to happen. And they do.
Layla embarks on a series of trips, while her sisters watch on-but not silently. Liora, the eldest, nags Layla to grow up and settle down, and she has a potion to help. Linor, whose eyes change from violet to blue before she plucks men's hearts out with her knife-sharp nails, urges Layla to find a lover. Lihi advocates denial, and Luna, long dead, visits Layla at night and sniffs her troubled dreams. And if these conflicting opinions weren't enough, Layla and her sisters are ruled by the Loveless Winds, which urge them to settle for security and to forget about love and passion. But are they right? As Layla travels the globe, throwing herself headlong into life, she encounters everything a heroine deserves-nothing less than the world, in all its rich confusion and voluptuous delight.

About this title

About the Author

Lia Nirgad is a writer and translator, born in Belgium and raised in Nigeria, Argentina, and Israel. As High as the Scooter Can Fly is her first novel to be published in English. Her translations include Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, and Lorrie Moore's Birds of America.

From Publishers Weekly

Layla is bored with her lot as a suburban housewife in this modern-day parable set in an unnamed city. Though she loves her three daughters, she longs for a more exotic world free of the indifference and fatigue of her present life. Can a flying scooter, unearthed in her backyard, be the answer to her prayers? This childish novel is fitfully captivating, but the fanciful world Nirgad fashions-in which four sisters (one long dead), elves and bats deluge the protagonist with advice-grows tiresome. Upon discovering the scooter, Layla, a frustrated traveler, neglects her household chores for fantastic jaunts to Prague or Alaska. As might be expected, the thinly drawn supporting cast grows weary of her antics. The author pays homage to every overburdened mother's standard "take me away" fantasy, a worthy plot device, but Layla's well-intentioned husband is predictably painted as a villain for wishing his wife would look to him for happiness. While Nirgad's descriptions of sisterly affection and childhood secrets provide occasional bursts of charm, her prose often shades to precious ("He was just the perfect kind of elf you'd want to have for yourself, perfect as a sunset with champagne"). A stern, unnamed narrator addresses the reader directly, as is common in the parable form, but this particular narrator is distracting, chiding readers at every turn for their presumed disbelief in the story. Though well-intentioned, this feminist fairy tale is more tedious than transporting.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Overlook Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1585673137
• ISBN 13: 9781585673131
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 188