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Dear American Airlines

3.06 of 5 stars 3.06 · rating details · 2,266 ratings · 595 reviews

Sometimes the planes don’t fly on time.

Bennie Ford, a fifty-three-year-old failed poet turned translator, is traveling to his estranged daughter’s wedding when his flight is canceled. Stuck with thousands of fuming passengers in the purgatory of O’Hare airport, he watches the clock tick and realizes that he will miss the ceremony. Frustrated, irate, and helpless, Bennie do...more

Hardcover, 180 pages

Published April 29th 2008 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Unknown

New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2008

23rd out of 100 books — 17 voters

Books With Most Annoying (yet mostly loveable) Protagonists

49th out of 90 books — 31 voters

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Dec 14, 2008 David rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: hideously-vile-protagonists, mind-numbingly-boring, read-in-2008, intellectual-con-artist-at-work

There are exactly two faintly positive things I can say about this book, so let's get them out of the way.

i. It was mercifully short.
ii. It wasn't quite dreadful enough to go on the 'utter dreck' shelf, though its brevity may have been a key mitigating factor.

Although it didn't quite make the 'utter dreck' cut, it was an overhyped, forgettable waste of time. One of those books where, when I read the glowing reviews it has garnered from others, I feel that maybe I live in a parallel universe. I...more

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Aug 18, 2008 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of the rant and the singing swing of a first-person narrator

I'm waffling between 3 and 4 stars, but lean higher for two reasons. 1) I swallowed the book in four smooth, gut-punching shots, finding it occasionally astringent but relishing its fire, reveling in the boozy combination of nasty jokes and maudlin recollection. It's sentimental and yet rigorously derisive, and I enjoyed the narrator Bennie's company on both counts. 2) This ain't some cheap rotgut, as the prose quite often bubbled and popped and woozily tilted against convention, e.g.:

--describi...more I'm waffling between 3 and 4 stars, but lean higher for two reasons. 1) I swallowed the book in four smooth, gut-punching shots, finding it occasionally astringent but relishing its fire, reveling in the boozy combination of nasty jokes and maudlin recollection. It's sentimental and yet rigorously derisive, and I enjoyed the narrator Bennie's company on both counts. 2) This ain't some cheap rotgut, as the prose quite often bubbled and popped and woozily tilted against convention, e.g.:

--describing his (and others') predicament, stranded at O'Hare by an inexplicable flurry of flight cancellations, as akin to Purgatory, Bennie surveys the "crowd of temporary refugees waiting, waiting, yawning, drumming fingers on kneecaps, asking cellphones what they did to deserve this, rereading The Da Vinci Code to keep from having to stare at the carpet. . . . A semi-punished lot, all of us: imprisoned within a pause, desperate to ascend;"

--one of Bennie's failed poems is "like an unfocused photograph;"

--"A fat man with the pinched red face of an infant and such a stink to his breath that you could smell his laughter across a crowded room."

And so on. Further, you could smell my laughter, too, at a number of very finely-pitched lines and scenarios, including one wonderful riff on the problems of breaking up with a lover named Stella that was simultaneously funny and a sly commentary on the unfortunate impact of literature on Bennie's life.

A few reviewers have been put off by the book's "failure" to hew more closely to its pitch (a complaint letter to American Airlines drafted in O'Hare), but while the central structural conceit does provide constant running gags, what is key is not the rant nor the situation but the more complicated comedy of finding a sense of one's own life through words which reach out to connect. Bennie is a (once-mildy-successful cum failed-human-being poet), a translator of Polish works (and one novel, translation in process, recurs throughout as a contrapuntal aria to B's own memories and complaints), a very bad father, a very good alcoholic (in abeyance), a very beleaguered son. I was impressed by how many balls Miles threw into the air, and how his juggling never seemed too strenuous or too arch--the play of narratives, the complicated flashback structure, the bustling ramble of a first-person rant all complemented one another, mostly. If I have any complaint, it's that I'd have appreciated a longer novel, more ambitiously teasing out the intersections of a Polish post-war novel and this poet's failed life, a more explicit attention to the central macguffin (the rant to American). Where others see problems and want the clutter cleared away, I'd have gone for extended play. But there's an understated precision to many of Miles' seemingly throwaway riffs and complications; quoting John Ciardi about the perils of the translator, who "tries for no more than the best possible failure," Bennie briefly notes how that would make a good epitaph, and it's quite lovely how often Miles can pull such rabbits out of threadworn or ridiculous hats.

Miles also nails the pleasures and pitfalls of alcohol abuse, and I'll let his Bennie close the review, with another of his great riffs:

"The worst part of sobriety is the silence. The lonesome, pressurized silence. Like the way sound falls away when you're choking. Even when I drank alone, the vodka provided me with a kind of soundtrack--a rhythm, channeled voices, a brain crowded with noise and streaming color, the rackety blurred clutter of my decrepitude. At the meetings everyone talks about how much more vivid life is without the booze, but I think, though I never say, that vivid is the wrong word. Life is rather more clear. I'm supposed to be thankful for that clarity, I know, for being freed from that dissonant inner music, from all those flatulent trumpets in my brain, and for finally being able to see life as it is, me as I am.... I'm supposed to be thankful, I know, for finally being shucked down to the core of me. But forgive me, I can't help it: Thanks but no thanks."

A good book.(less)

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Jul 17, 2008 Edward ONeill rated it 2 of 5 stars

Too clever by half, as the British say.

Everyone was ballyhooing this book upon its publication.

So I plunked down for a nice hardcover addition.

Everyone knows the concept: one-time drunk, has-been poet, current translator rehashes his life story in a long, long, l-o-n-g letter of complaint to the air carrier that's left him stranded in O'Hare, missing his estranged daughter's wedding/commitment ceremony.

Nice concept.

Execution is fine and funny. Writer Jonathan Miles has a fine ear for a comic phr...more

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Aug 20, 2008 Jennifer rated it 1 of 5 stars

I had such high hopes for this book. The idea of wrapping a narrative within an angry letter to an airline, written while stuck at an airport for hours, is a clever one. Unfortunately, the writing itself goes over the top with clever, adopting an inronic, winking voice that quickly grows old. You never really care about the main character, mostly because his motives hide behind so many layers of smug attitude, coming from the character and the author himself. Plus, the narrator is a translator,...more

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Jun 23, 2008 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-addressing-human-frailty, contemp-fiction, searing-social-commentary, great-books-nobody-ever-read

Entirely dysfunctional airline industry as a metaphor for entirely dysfunctional American life--abysmal failures to meet expectations and make connections, mounds of baggage nobody knows what to do with, and that sickening, existential feeling that life can be a vastly unfair, bureaucratic wasteland in which nobody cares. The writing is brilliant--fresh hysterical descriptions of being stuck forever in the hell hole that is O'Hare side by side with a surprisingly deep story of a human life gone...more

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Feb 06, 2009 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I've always admired Jonathon Miles' personality-driven, lyrically-satisfying journalism - book reviews, food writing, outdoors essays, etc. - so of course I was excited to read his first novel.

Whether one loves or hates this protogonist, or loves or hates this book, (the nature of the beast of this book is that doesn't seem to leave much middle ground as far readerly relationships go), no one can deny Miles can flat-out write, he can write sentences, so well that his honor the craft of literatu...more I've always admired Jonathon Miles' personality-driven, lyrically-satisfying journalism - book reviews, food writing, outdoors essays, etc. - so of course I was excited to read his first novel.

Whether one loves or hates this protogonist, or loves or hates this book, (the nature of the beast of this book is that doesn't seem to leave much middle ground as far readerly relationships go), no one can deny Miles can flat-out write, he can write sentences, so well that his honor the craft of literature. For that reason alone the book gets 3 rather than 2 or less stars. He writes with a style that immediately sets this book apart from the monotone dullness of so much comtemprary fiction. So for me style and diction set this book apart from the dreck of the pack.

The form of the novel is a howl of a complaint-letter, a rant, and like most rants this one grows tiresome about half-way through. The novel's scenes are steeped in booze, self-pity, and nicotine fits; the descriptions of everyman's situation of being delayed, cancelled and stuck in an airport grow, like the book itself, wearisome. This is where the book sinks, if for no other reason than no matter how well-written, the material gets boring. The book swims whenever Miles takes us outside the airport, which is not often enough.

I don't think I've ever read a shorter novel (180 pages) that felt like it took forever to get to the end. But I stuck with it because the writing is so spirited, in tone and style. He risks a lot in this book: writing about male sentimentality; taking on the full-of-pitfalls task of making his protgonaist an alcoholic writer (poet); flirting with cliches associated with the "male-at-loose-ends" character; engrossing us in a side-story that often reads like a 75 year old knock-off of A Farewell to Arms. But then such risks might be worth admiring.

I'm hopeful that with his next fiction Miles will give us the fullness of story, characters and setting, that rise to the occasion of his prodigious talents. He's got the muscles to lift a lot more than he does here.

Hence, three stars and a conflicted review.

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Oct 18, 2008 Emily rated it 1 of 5 stars

Well, I thought this book was about a traveler who got stuck in the airport and wrote a really long complaint letter to the airline (oh...it actually was all that!) I thought the letter would be delightful to read and full of good zingers. NO! The dude writing it was just plain bitter. I've written stuff when I was mad or bitter and it is obvious. And it is also absolutely no fun to read.

I couldn't tell if the author himself is a bitter man (he doesn't look all that bitter on the book jacket) o...more

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Apr 21, 2009 Sharon rated it 5 of 5 stars

My friend Mia recommended this one--so glad she did. I loved the author's sardonic sense of humor. The story is beautifully told.
It's the kind of book that you can't bear to take back to the library 'cause you love it sooooo much...and when you decide you're going to copy down all the great passages, you end up copying most of the book :)

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Nov 08, 2008 Laren rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

When the protagonist's flight to his estranged daughter's wedding is delayed by almost a day, he starts a complaint letter to the airline which turns into a long rambling missive about his life. We learn why he is estranged from his daughter, why the wedding is so important, and ultimately how writing this letter saves his life. There is a subplot of his translations of another author's work (which is his job) and I didn't quite understand why all that was in there. I'm sure my English teachers...more

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Jul 29, 2008 Kelly Herold rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adultfiction

The Good:

The novel's conceit--life story within a complaint letter to American Airlines. All the complaints were spot on and really depict the indignity of modern air travel perfectly.

The ending. No spoilers for me, but if this novel had ended any differently, I would have been writing a complaint letter.

The Bad:

The novel's protagonist is one of those 20th century characters I recently complained about on the blog (http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.co...). Alcohol problem: check. Estranged from...more

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Feb 28, 2009 liz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: life-stories, literary

Um... Sad. Just, sad. I had read good things about this short novel and was excited to read it, but goddamn is it sad. Aging former alcoholic takes stock of his ruined life while he's derailed on his way to his estranged daughter's wedding. Normally I'm a sucker for anything involving translation or translators, but jeez. I do have a lot of pages dog-eared, which I suppose means it's well-written.

Shortly before I left New Orleans, I was fooling around with an equally alky divorcée named Sandra (...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Every critic was at first skeptical of this epistolary "gimmick novel" about a self-pitying, if lovable, loser, but by the end, all agreed that "the concept works beautifully" (Los Angeles Times). Miles's effort produced an intelligent, playful, and, above all, moving story full of humor and well-written digressions. Bennie is a remarkably flawed but sympathetic man, and though his hilarious asides may not always advance the storyline, they certainly contribute to the fun. The only point of cont

...more

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Nov 24, 2008 Kathy McC. Mc.C rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was not what I expected. While I usually do not enjoy surprises, this book was an exception. The author is a journalist for the NY Times.
Benny, the main character, is stranded at O'Hare airport and as a result will miss is daughter's committment ceremony. While it is a story reflecting his anger at the current state of the airline industry, it is also a story of missed chances and life mistakes.
Benny- a middle aged man- has lots of time to reflect on his past and current life while...more

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Apr 10, 2013 Julia Kearney rated it 2 of 5 stars

"Dear American Airlines" by Jonathan Miles reflects on the wasted life of Benjamin R. Ford. Benjamin was a poet but ended up translating books from one language to another. His life is a series of mistakes. Bennie began writing this novel as a complaint letter to American Airlines for delaying his flight. He wanted to fly from New York to Los Angles, with a layover at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, to go to his daughter, Stella’s, wedding. Bennie rants on and on about numerous topics while he’s wai...more

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Dec 08, 2012 RJ rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite

I have never read a complaint letter before. Well, of course, except the ones I wrote myself. That is why Dear American Airlines, a novel by Jonathan Miles, is the first and, by far, the longest one I have ever read.

Benjamin Ford, a fifty-three year old ex-poet turned translator, is stuck at Chicago’s O’Hare airport alongside hundreds of passengers. Infuriated by the Chicago airport system, their inability to disclose further information on the imperceptible unfavorable weather that cancelled hi...more I have never read a complaint letter before. Well, of course, except the ones I wrote myself. That is why Dear American Airlines, a novel by Jonathan Miles, is the first and, by far, the longest one I have ever read.

Benjamin Ford, a fifty-three year old ex-poet turned translator, is stuck at Chicago’s O’Hare airport alongside hundreds of passengers. Infuriated by the Chicago airport system, their inability to disclose further information on the imperceptible unfavorable weather that cancelled his flight, and the fleeting opportunity to walk his only daughter down the aisle, Bennie starts writing a complaint letter. However, what began as a demand for a $392.68 airplane ticket refund suddenly becomes an unfolding of his messed-up life. From his failure as a poet, a husband, and a father – not to mention having a schizophrenic mother and an apathetic father – Bennie narrates how he fucked up his own life and how life fucked him more. By attending his daughter’s wedding on time, he believes he can somehow correct past wrongs and start living again.

The novel, overflowing with humor, gives a handful to its readers, offering more than just good laughs. It starts off with huge amounts of intelligently-executed witticisms in the form of Bennie’s incessant complaints and the different episodes in the airport. As time passed in his prison, the letter then starts to go deeper into Bennie’s life – filled with alcohol, regret, and a fading hope for redemption. What I adore about the book is that it gave more than what I expected with its seamless blend of comedy and drama. The good laughs kept me reading from one page to the next but it is Bennie’s story that made me love the book. The main character’s innate sense of humor as he tells the bad choices he has made and the heartbreaking events in his life made the storytelling more absorbing and, somehow, more emotional.

I never really got bored with this book. I have read Hornby’s before which are quite hilarious as well but this one is about the funniest thing I’ve ever read. The humorous narration yet emotionally-stimulating plot created a fine mixture, making this an unforgettable first novel by the author. Storytelling in the form of a letter, from page one until the last, was quite new to me too – bonus 100 points for that! Who knew that I’ll ever have a favorite complaint letter?

Excerpts:

"To me the evening looked and felt like peace – not domestice détente, but the real thing. A field of lavender, a northern lake at dawn. Or whatever air-freshener imagery best evokes peace."

"Really, though: It doesn’t make a lick of sense, this lack of wordage in the restroom stalls. Airports are petri dishes for boredom, rage, nicotine withdrawal, and gastrointestinal discomfort – the presumed nuclei of anonymous bathroom verse – and yet the walls here are as blank as a dead man’s eyeball. The only marks at all are random scratches that I’m at a loss to explain, unless jetsetting circus tigers use these loos. You would think that some enterprising and disaffected soul would be inspired to write something along, say, these lines: I fucked in Florida, I fucked in Maine. / I fucked for three days on the coast of Spain. / But I’ll never be happy, never be free / until I fuck this airline, like it fucked me. But no, nothing. Not a sign of life in these restrooms save the sounds and smells of businessmen voiding the fruits of their expense accounts. Perharps it’s true what they say. Maybe poetry really is dead."(less)

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Feb 29, 2012 Bonnie Brody rated it 5 of 5 stars

The title of this book does not do justice to its content. It is beyond me to think of a title that would give an inkling of what lies within this novel's wondrous pages.

Benjamin Ford is trying to get to his daughter's wedding in California when he finds himself stranded at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. He is composing an angry letter to American Airlines that takes the form of an autobiographical assessment of his own life. Benjamin has been a lush, drinking all day and all night until fairly rece...more The title of this book does not do justice to its content. It is beyond me to think of a title that would give an inkling of what lies within this novel's wondrous pages.

Benjamin Ford is trying to get to his daughter's wedding in California when he finds himself stranded at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. He is composing an angry letter to American Airlines that takes the form of an autobiographical assessment of his own life. Benjamin has been a lush, drinking all day and all night until fairly recently. When morning would hit, sunshine felt like "shards of glass" to him. He drank away his first relationship with the mother of Speck, his daughter. Speck is getting married and Benjamin has not seen her, nor has he participated in her life, since she was an infant. He continued drinking for years after her birth and only stopped when Speck was out of college. He wants to walk Speck down the aisle, a promise he made to her in her infant days.

Benjamin was raised in New Orleans by a mentally ill mother who had multiple hospitalizations and suicide attempts. Recently, Benjamin's mother had a stroke which miraculously cured her mental illness. He currently lives with her in New York City. His father was Polish and arrived in the U.S. from Dachau, a concentration camp. Benjamin's father died when he was 15 years old. One of Benjamin's most poignant and happy memories of his mostly absentee father is that of his father occasionally lying in bed next to him and reciting poetry to him in Polish. Though Benjamin did not understand the language, he loved the sound of it, especially the hard consonants at the ends of words.

Benjamin was a somewhat recognized poet in his younger years. However, he now translates Polish poetry and novels into English. He sees the work of a translator as second-rate. It is the writer who always gets the woman, he muses, while the translator looks on. He discusses his years of bar-room poetry and his time in academia in a jaded, angry, brilliant and sometimes maudlin manner. Not since his twenties has Benjamin been able to write poetry of consequence. He has lost his righteous anger that worked so well for him as a poet. His current age is not made clear but he is probably in his middle to late 40's.

The strength of this book lies in its beautiful, raw and sorrowful writing - maudlin at times - and filled with a narcissistic self-pity. However maudlin the writing got, there was nothing that stopped me from wanting to keep reading. The book had me in its throes the whole time. The author has a powerful command of language and can balance several stories and strands at once. We get to hear Benjamin's personal story along with a parallel story that he is currently translating. This is all on top of the angry letter he is composing to American Airlines about the layover in Chicago that will cause him to miss his daughter's wedding. I highly recommend this book.
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Aug 11, 2011 Rafi Bloch rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a very interesting book in that the whole style is a letter to American Airlines as a man, Benjamin 'Bennie' Ford waits for a plane, while stuck in Chicago, to LA in order to attend his daughter's same-sex wedding ceremony. Bennie has not been a good father or husband. He is a translator and reflects on his life of mistakes and mishaps. He used to be an alcoholic and survived depression and suicidal compulsion. His mother had a stroke, though it saved her from her mania, manic moods, and...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Eric Barber added it · review of another edition

Clever book, excellent sense of humour, I found that the main character was very real and believable, and I was able to relate to him for better and worse.

The story takes you through the superficial aspects of modern travel into the deeper territory such as loneliness, family, personal anguish and relationships, to name a few.

During the narrative the main character quotes from a book he is reading and although I found this somewhat distracting during the first part of the book, I began to look f...more

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Jul 22, 2011 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars

Why did I think this book would be about airline gripping? It so wasn't. It was worse. A Dude talking about his life, boo hoo, while trying to fly from NY to LA to go to his estranged daughters wedding. Luckily the book was really short, so it didn't go on and on forever as some of these books do. I think also because it wasn't a real story that it didn't go on forever. God, what even happened. I mean, Dude just talked about his life, growing up in New Orleans with a manic mother and a father wh...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Jeruen Dery rated it 5 of 5 stars

Now this is one good book that I have read. Jonathan Miles' first novel, entitled Dear American Airlines, is one book that I would praise for its originality.

Here's the gist of it. The book is a novel written in the form of a rant. There is this one middle-aged man, Benjamin Ford, who is flying from New York City to Los Angeles, and he has a forty-five minute lay-over in Chicago. However, due to weather reasons, his flight got delayed, and he is now stranded in the Chicago O'Hare International A...more Now this is one good book that I have read. Jonathan Miles' first novel, entitled Dear American Airlines, is one book that I would praise for its originality.

Here's the gist of it. The book is a novel written in the form of a rant. There is this one middle-aged man, Benjamin Ford, who is flying from New York City to Los Angeles, and he has a forty-five minute lay-over in Chicago. However, due to weather reasons, his flight got delayed, and he is now stranded in the Chicago O'Hare International Airport. One learns that he circled Chicago over and over, until the pilot was forced to land in Peoria, and later was bussed to Chicago. He then spends the next 20-something hours in Chicago, and he has nothing to do, except to write a complaint letter to the airline.

That's why the novel is entitled that way. It is a 180-page rant which somehow involves his pathetic life, his miserable alcoholism, his failed relationships, his attempts on being a poet, his child trouble, his schizophrenic mother, among others. He is on the way to Los Angeles to attend his daughter's wedding, who happens to be getting married with a girl. Yes, his daughter is lesbian. Later on, we also learn that he had suicidal intentions of his own.

Anyway, the most fascinating thing about this novel is that the concept is very original. Who would think of a novel in the form of a rant? And even more amazing, is the fact that it can be sustained for 180 pages! It is indeed one of the most original novels I have read in a while, and I am just fascinated at how much material it covered, all forming a coherent whole, with minor characters such as other passengers, people from the past, a TSA officer, and others. The author also made a good job of checking his facts: American Airlines does have a hub in Chicago, the gate numbers are all correct as being American Airlines gates, and the lay-out of the airport, as much as it is described in the novel, are pretty much accurate. I suppose I have flown through Chicago enough to know this.

Anyway, I totally recommend this book for anyone to read. If you want to read an original book, don't hesitate to pick this one up.(less)

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May 06, 2010 Evan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Okay, so I hope the crystalline clarity of this review isn't tainted by the fact that I read it inappropriately drunk in a Mexican restaurant, but somehow, I think the protagonist would be just fine with that.

So the concept of the novel is that a simpering literature translator is trapped in Chicago's O'Hare airport by American Airlines, who, he claims, is ignoring the beautiful weather outside to ruin his life. What starts as a blistering rebuke to AA (coincidentally the same initials as Alcoho...more Okay, so I hope the crystalline clarity of this review isn't tainted by the fact that I read it inappropriately drunk in a Mexican restaurant, but somehow, I think the protagonist would be just fine with that.

So the concept of the novel is that a simpering literature translator is trapped in Chicago's O'Hare airport by American Airlines, who, he claims, is ignoring the beautiful weather outside to ruin his life. What starts as a blistering rebuke to AA (coincidentally the same initials as Alcoholics Anonymous, a likeliness commented on by the narrator many times) then modulates into a memoir of Bennie (that's his name)'s sordid past.

We learn how he was trapped in alcoholism and lost his wife and child, and frittered away his talent, and so on. Miles walks the awkward line between making his narrator unlikeable, and then making you want to root for him. Unsympathetic narrators are tricky for fiction writers, because they can undermine the credibility of the whole tale, and if I had to suspect why this one is panned by reviewers, I'd guess that has something to do with it. So I'm certainly against the grain when I say that it's awesome.

The fact is, even with some really gritty subject matter (cumshots in hair; how classy), this novel manages to be extremely touching, and sort of warped in that post-postmodern way. Bennie is the kind of writer who's come from successions and generations of broken homes (his father a Dachau survivor/his mother a manic depressive) so that it asks the somewhat eerie question if there is some illness at the heart of society that makes people the way they are. Miles focuses this concern on the hyper-weird Bennie J. Ford, author of the letter to American Airlines.

An actual laugh line from the book: "We circled O'Hare for an hour before the pilot informed us he was landing in Peoria. Peoria! In my youth I thought Peoria was a fictional place that Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis had cooked up one night at the tail end of a gin bender. But no, it exists."

So, though this isn't the kind of book that wins a Pulitzer, the reason I think it's so damned great is because it perfectly captures the intellectual and cynical verve that our generation has. Some of the slang is just so right on that it feels like hearing your drunkard English professors off on a rant.

So read this book, already. You won't find it in an airport bookstore, though.(less)

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Dec 08, 2009 Jonny99 rated it 3 of 5 stars

The central conceit of the book is that it is an epic complaint letter to American Airlines written by a stranded passenger at O’Hare Airport and it works surprisingly well. Miles keeps the illusion up throughout the long digressive text by throwing in contemporary characters (e.g., fellow traveler “Oshkosh Bob”) among those related in remembrances by the protagonist Benjamin (“Bennie”) Ford. Ford is a hapless recovering alcoholic born of a young schizophrenic mother and limited Polish-refugee f...more The central conceit of the book is that it is an epic complaint letter to American Airlines written by a stranded passenger at O’Hare Airport and it works surprisingly well. Miles keeps the illusion up throughout the long digressive text by throwing in contemporary characters (e.g., fellow traveler “Oshkosh Bob”) among those related in remembrances by the protagonist Benjamin (“Bennie”) Ford. Ford is a hapless recovering alcoholic born of a young schizophrenic mother and limited Polish-refugee father. His prodigious thirst has stripped him of a baby mamma, a daughter and possible a career in poetry (although Miles shrewdly only suggests that Ford might have the talent to make a go of it as a poet.) Ford is compelling because he relates his misadventures and losses with limited self-pity and a tendency to take ownership of his many alcohol-fueled mistakes. The errors themselves are also compelling. Returning from a night of drinking after the mother (Stella) of his daughter (Stella, jr.) (the only plot driver is his attempt to get to jr.’s wedding in California), he stands shirtless under the window of the New Orleans apartment and nearly screams out her name – Stella – before realizing how cliché that would be. Later he winds up marrying a one-night-stand he inadequately remembers named Margaret. Miles’ slow unraveling of Ford’s realization that his mind filled in the blanks of Margaret with attributes she doesn’t really possess plays out like a slow car accident. Part of the intrigue of the book is guessing how much verisimilitude there is in Ford’s vodka-soaked remembrances and weather Stella’s abandonment with Stella, jr. was as seemingly unjustified as it sounded. Ford is a Polish translator by trade (such as it is) and intermingled with the plot and the extended faux-memoir is the story he is currently translating. Somehow Ford’s predicament and that of the protagonist of the story he is translating mirror one another but I wasn’t literary enough to understand the connection. Overall it is a good read although I think if you are young enough not to have experienced any real disappointments in life you might not relate.(less)

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Aug 24, 2009 Schnaucl rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: august, fiction, library, read_2009

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It was an interesting book. Benny's flight is canceled due to non-existent bad weather, so he's stranded in an airport overnight. Frustrated at the delay and the transparently false explanation for the delay, he starts to write a letter of complaint to American Airlines, demanding a refund.

What starts as a diatribe against lousy service turns into a confessional letter about all the things that Benny has done wrong with his life. The flight that was canceled was supposed to take him to his daugh...more

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Aug 11, 2009 Sue rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I once spent an extra 36 hours stranded between flights in Chicago, so the premise of this novel made me laugh corrosively right away. Whenever an airport stacks up with the human detritus of canceled flights, you have to figure that some of the humans are missing something important -- like Bennie Ford, the author of this rant to American Airlines. Bennie is trying to get to the wedding of his daughter, whom he was not seen since her infancy. To emphasize how little he knows her, he's just lear...more

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Jul 17, 2009 Janice marked it as to-read

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Dear American Airlines

By Jonathan Miles

Miles, who writes about books for Men’s Journal and serves as cocktai...more

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Jun 27, 2009 Judy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I bought this book thinking that it was a comic riff on the inconveniences involved with airline travel. Whoops. Not even close. Bennie Ford is traveling, or trying to travel to California, to attend the wedding of the daughter that he hasn't seen since she was an infant (or the commitment ceremony since she is marrying a woman) when his flight is cancelled and he's stuck in O'Hare airport (with thousands of other stranded passengers). Realizing that he is going to miss the ceremony, he begins a...more

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Jun 19, 2009 Bill rated it 3 of 5 stars

Miles is the cocktail columnist for the New York Times and books columnist for Men’s Journal. Dear American Airlines is his debut as a novelist, although he has written for several magazines.

Dear American Airlines is a long (very long) complaint letter to AA from middle aged Bennie Ford. He, and thousdands of others, is grounded at O’Hare rather from his New York to Los Angles flight Actually, his plane landed in Peoria and he was bused to Chicago. The alleged reason for grounding is bad weather...more

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Apr 18, 2009 Eric rated it 3 of 5 stars

Bennie Ford, a fifty-three-year-old failed poet turned translator, is traveling to his estranged daughters wedding when his flight is canceled. Stuck with thousands of fuming passengers in the purgatory of O'Hare Airport, he watches the clock tick and realizes that he will miss the ceremony. Frustrated, irate, and helpless, Bennie does the only thing he can: he starts to write a letter. But what begins as a hilariously excoriating demand for a refund soon becomes a cri de coeur of a life misspen...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Ronald Wise rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was an entertaining read, written as a 180-page rant to American Airlines as the narrator, Benjamin Ford, is stranded at Chicago's O'Hare Airport while traveling to San Francisco to attend his daughter's wedding. Just a year or two older than I am, Benjamin Ford's cynical cultural references hit the mark with me. By bits and pieces the odd aspects of his family and past relationship come to light, gradually revealing the strange significance of his rendezvous with the ex-wife and daughter h...more

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Aug 11, 2009 Ryan Lester rated it 4 of 5 stars

I actually took this book with me to read on the plane between Houston and New York City. I was able to finish it on the return flight. Although the book did seem to veer a little from time to time, the core of the story was still very well played out. Over the course of the novel, through his writing an angry letter to American Airlines, Bennie is able to come to terms with why his life ended up the way it did. Being stuck at the airport could easily be seen as a life altering event for him, as...more

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About Jonathan Miles

JONATHAN MILES's first novel, Dear American Airlines, was named a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. A former columnist for the New York Times, he serves as a contributing editor to magazines as diverse as Field & Stream and Details, and writes regularly for the New York Times Book Review and The Literary Review (UK). A...more

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Books by Jonathan Miles

The Wreck of the Medusa: The Most Famous Sea Disaster of the Nineteenth Century

The Dangerous Otto Katz: The Many Lives of a Soviet Spy

La zattera della Medusa. Il naufragio, lo scandalo, il capolavoro.

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Quotes from Dear American Airlines

“Had Stella been named anything else, and/or had we lived in any other city besides New Orleans, my desperate call would have been just my desperate call. In that alternate universe the neighbors might have peeked from behind the curtains but they wouldn't have laughed or, worse, joined in. But you simply cannot shout the name Stella while standing under a window in New Orleans and hope for anything like an authentic or even mildly earnest moment. Literature had beaten me to this moment, had staked its flag here first, and there was nothing I could do outside in that soupy, rain-drenched alleyway that could rise above sad parody. Perhaps if she'd been named Beatrice, or Katarzyna-maybe then my life would have turned out differently. Maybe then my voice would have roused her to the window, maybe then I could have told her that I was sorry, that I could be a better man, that I couldn't promise I knew everything it meant but I loved her. Instead I stared up at that black window, shutmouthed and impotent, blinking and reblinking my eyes to flush out the rainwater. "Stella," I whispered. The French have an expression: "Without literature life is hell." Yeah, well. Life with it bears its own set of flames.” — 2 people liked it

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