ON THE WING
WILL BE PUBLISHED
IN JULY 2007
BY ST. MARTIN'S PRESS.
YOU CAN ORDER IT
IN ADVANCE
AT
AMAZON.COM OR
BARNES&NOBLE.COM
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On the Wing
About the Book
A Brief Description from
the Publisher
In Taking Off, the first installment of Eric Kraft's beguiling
trilogy, Peter Leroy built an aerocycle in his parents’ garage, working
from designs he found in Impractical Craftsman magazine. Cheered
on by the gathered residents of his small Long Island beach community,
Peter readied his contraption for the adventure of a lifetime: a solo cross-country
flight to New Mexico and back.
Now Peter is ready to fly, and in On the Wing, he tells the hilarious
tale of his journey across a mid-century America populated by eccentrics,
crackerbarrel philosophers, and figments of the national imagination.
In small hops, mostly consisting of taxiing and landing, he visits roadside
attractions and unusual towns: one where every casual expression and idiom
is questioned (hence a diner offering Real Diner Cooking rather than real
home cooking); another where he is chased with pitchforks and shotguns
by citizens still traumatized by Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds;
a remote crossroads where he finds himself under attack by a low-flying
plane; and finally a town near Roswell, New Mexico, where Peter becomes
a phenomenon to rival Roswell’s reputation for alien invasion. Along
the way, Peter encounters other on-the-roaders, and finds himself pursued
by a mysterious dark-haired girl, who continues to appear in different
guises and seems strangely familiar, though he can’t quite place her face.
And, in a parallel contemporary journey undertaken with his wife Albertine,
the adult Peter revisits his long-ago journey, navigating as Albertine
drives a vintage automobile through a much-changed America, and misremembering
every step of the way.
On the Wing is a playful but profound novel about an Icarus who
does not crash and burn, but grows older, wiser, and productively forgetful,
as he reimagines his boyhood to create the story of his life. |
by Eric
Kraft, as Peter
Leroy |
Brief Excerpts from
Reviews
“Sublime Tomfoolery”
Attempting a structural analysis of this sublime tomfoolery would turn
your brain to fettuccini, but who cares? As its brilliant final page demonstrates,
it really is the journey, not the arrival, that matters. Kirkus
Reviews [MORE]
“Funny and Irreverent”
This is cheeky, escapist satire, funny and irreverent but — much like
its protagonist — without firm direction.Publishers Weekly [MORE] |
TAKING
OFF CONTENTS
|
|
Reviews
If Jack Kerouac had had
a sense of humor, he’d have left Dean Moriarty in the drunk tank and hit
the road with Kraft’s irresistible alter ego Peter Leroy.
This deliciously engaging trip of a book continues
the whopper of a story begun with Taking Off (2006). That was the
account of Babbington, Long Island’s own Tom Swift: 14-year-old Peter,
as he attempted to “pilot” his homemade “aerocycle,” The Spirit of Babbington,
all
the way to New Mexico (albeit mostly via “taxiing” just above the ground).
In this sequel, set at the time of the original “flight” and 40-some years
later, Kraft offers two richly entertaining, if unequally brilliant, juxtaposed
narratives. One details the adolescent’s cross-country adventure, during
which Peter fends off cops who suspect he’s a Martian, falls for one buxom
blonde waitress after another, enjoys aid and comfort proffered by his
soul mates the MDMC (Muddleheaded Dreamers’Motorcycle Club) and holds fervent
conversations with Spirit (i.e., the soul of his jerrybuilt conveyance).
Alas, Spirit is no match for the older Peter’s splendid spouse Albertine,
who accompanies and leads him by the nose everywhere, radiating a no-nonsense
attitude that makes us think of Myrna Loy, Kate Hepburn and a kinder, gentler
Dorothy Parker. Only Peter the elder and Albertine — who are retracing
his young self’s adventurous path — would stumble upon one town that worships
marshmallows and another that calls itself a museum and charges admission
to enter city limits, as well as check into a motel just behind a couple
who identify themselves as Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Attempting a
structural analysis of this sublime tomfoolery would turn your brain to
fettuccini, but who cares? As its brilliant final page demonstrates, it
really is the journey, not the arrival, that matters.
“The world owes a lot to muddleheaded dreamers,”
we’re assured. Yes, but nowhere near as much as rib-tickled readers owe
to the indispensable Kraft.
Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2007
This fanciful novel, the second
volume in Kraft’s Flying trilogy (begun with 2006’s Taking Off)
describes Peter Leroy’s solo cross-country “flight” at age 14 on a homemade
aerocycle that only got airborne once, when it hit a bump in the road.
Traveling from New York to New Mexico, Peter and his aerocycle encounter
strange events and even stranger people. He spends a night in jail for
being an egotist, visits Forgettable, W.Va., receives useless advice from
strangers (“Gravy covers a lot of sins”) and is mistaken for a UFO in New
Mexico. Kraft has a vivid imagination and a wry sense of humor, spoofing
both the 1950s and the present in alternating chapters of a teenaged Peter
on his journey, and Peter as an adult taking his wife, Albertine, on an
erratic trip of remembrance. This is cheeky, escapist satire, funny and
irreverent but — much like its protagonist — without firm direction.
Publishers Weekly, May 7, 2007
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TOP
BRIEF
REVIEWS
LONG
REVIEWS
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Copyright © 2007 by Eric
Kraft
On the Wing is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents,
dialogues, settings, and businesses portrayed in it are products
of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any
resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the author.
St. Martin’s Press will publish On the Wing in the summer of 2007.
For information about publication rights outside the U. S. A., audio
rights, serial rights, screen rights, and so on, e-mail Kraft’s indefatigable
agent, Alec “Nick” Rafter.
The illustration at the top of the page is an adaptation of an illustration
by Stewart Rouse that first appeared on the cover of the August 1931 issue
of Modern Mechanics and Inventions. The boy at the controls of the
aerocycle doesn’t particularly resemble Peter Leroy—except, perhaps, for
the smile. |
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