Flight

A stunning novel about grief, shame, art, family, and all the ways we try and fail and try again to love and care for one another, from the critically acclaimed author of Want
 

Reviews

‘Lynn Steger Strong is a master of family life, a wise chronicler of economic struggles real and imagined, of dreams versus responsibilities, and of nuances in relationships of all kinds. Arresting and powerful, Flight examines the possibility and pain of fierce love and hope in our time of looming existential threats’ Lily King, author of Writers and Lovers

‘A fateful few days in the life of two families becomes in Lynn Steger Strong’s hands a clear-eyed examination of our current moment. Flight probes deeply into grief and its aftershocks, what binds us to one another, the meaning of art itself. It's a book whose fleet movements belie its ambition. Suspenseful, dazzling and moving’ Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind

‘A gorgeous novel, both intimate and expansive. Flight is packed full of wisdom about family, marriage, class, climate, love and loss. Lynn Steger Strong is a master of creating characters so funny, flawed and true that they feel like people you know. I couldn’t put it down’ J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Friends and Strangers

‘Breathtakingly propulsive and insightful, Flight gripped me from the very first page and didn’t let go. It asked my heart to pay better, closer attention to the world, because it pays such exquisite attention to the world: from botched gingerbread houses to cigarette breaks, every scene bristles and pulses with nuance. Strong is a writer who makes me feel reconfigured, more sharply attuned to the business of being alive; as if I have nerve endings that didn’t exist before reading her. Flight is a story about how we lose and find each other again – and how this finding is never done, because we are, all of us, many selves at once’ Leslie Jamison, author of The Recovering and Make it Scream, Make it Burn

‘With razor-sharp pacing and luminous prose, Lynn Steger Strong aims her keen eye on the complexities of siblings, marriage, motherhood and grief. Flight is a wonderfully alive look at the ways we try – defiantly and sometimes perilously – to love one another. You will want to gulp this book down in one sitting, but I urge you to slow down because its charms should be savored’  Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of Good Company

‘With deft, discerning prose, Strong writes beautifully about mothers and the struggles, fears, and joys of motherhood... A quiet domestic novel that soars’ Kirkus Reviews

‘A compelling portrait of how love and resentment are often twin sides of the same coin. Flight is its own portrait of struggle and strife, and yet a smooth and utterly compelling read’ Vogue

‘Strong’s writing soars effortlessly… True reconciliation, safety, stability, fulfillment: These are destinations along a flight path forever uncertain — though shot through, like this novel, with moments of transcendence’ Los Angeles Times

‘Strong is adept as characterizing this loss in all its manifestations, and in rendering the challenges inherent in three families trying to celebrate together… Once again, Strong demonstrates her talents for perception and nuance’ Publishers Weekly

'Part of the sense of life in the book comes from Strong’s distinctive prose style — compressed, telegraphic and gestural, one in which the sharp noticing of what might otherwise seem like ordinary details about a character or an exchange takes on a resonating depth' New York Times

'Strong is an exacting observer of families and their idiosyncrasies, in the mode of Anne Tyler and Jonathan Franzen... Strong keeps Flight in motion with twists of language and revelation' Washington Post

‘Three siblings face their first Christmas without a mother in this moving novel about grief and family. As they attempt to navigate the new dynamic and perform familiar festive rituals, old resentments and tensions between them are revealed and it takes an emergency in the local community to pull them together’ Good Housekeeping

'Flight doesn’t just juggle the interior lives of six protagonists with great dexterity; it also carefully delineates who these people are to each other, and where anger and jealousy might clip the wings of their better angels... Tightly plotted and vividly rendered' USA Today

'With compassion and a deep sense of understanding, Flight explores the nature of belonging, and what it means to truly be part of a community' Buzzfeed

‘Intricate and moving... reminiscent of Anne Tyler, that great chronicler of American families’ Irish Times

'Consoling and unsettling… Add enforced cheer, choreographed feasting and stifling expectations – not to mention the swirl of memories that it all triggers – and you’ve a combustible combination' Observer