LOSS OF FLIGHT

When the patients of psychiatrist Dr. Max Bodine decide they can no longer remain passive about their situations--lonely, empty lives--they take action, leading to some startling solutions to their problems

This lengthy novel seems unfinished, requiring a sharper focus in some spots and greater subtlety elsewhere. The plot revolves around a week in the lives of an unconventional psychiatrist, Max Bodine, and his patients (whom he sees outside the office only, lest they enter "with a prepared story to tell to a captive audience"): Elaine Lifton, an 18-year-old who attempts an unconvincingly motivated suicide by amputating both hands with a table saw; her neighbor Katlyn Whiston, whose gay husband has just died; and Katlyn's married lover, Royce Chambers, who has been given a week to choose between Katlyn and his family. Implausible coincidences and the utterly contrived urgency of Royce's ultimatum are such frivolous touches that the reader may wonder if this is perhaps a miscarried comedy, but the larding of the novel with pseudo-aphorisms (e.g., "We do things we can't explain as easily as we do things we don't understand") has a correspondingly imbalanced portentousness. Vogan ( In Shelly's Leg ) demonstrates a fertile imagination in her characterization of Katlyn, but this evidence of her talents is insufficiently redemptive.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Set in San Francisco, Vogan's novel deals with how people come to terms with the empty places in their lives. Royce Chambers meets Katlyn Whiston at a movie theater and she soon becomes his lover, moving into the apartment he keeps as a refuge from an unhappy marriage. Events center on an April week two years later when each must decide whether to make the changes necessary to further the relationship. An ultimately optimistic message is given resonance through strong characterizations and psychological insight. This is at once a compassionate exploration of a condition one character--unconventional psychiatrist Max Bodine, who treats patients at the location of their choice--dubs "American loneliness," and a convincing portrayal of two people who triumph over it.
- Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.