The Guide To The Flying Island

by Lee Upton

Fiction. Off the coast of the small town of Truror is an island steeped in local legend, a place once home to mysterious religious orders and apocryphal lost settlements ... a place that seems, in the right fog, to lift right out of the water and fly. This peculiar past has made the island, in the present, a minor tourist attraction, drawing sightseers and the devout alike. On an otherwise routine tour, Jake Isinglass, a native son of Truror and guide to the island, witnesses something he can't explain: a young woman falls from an island cliff to her death ... or jumps to her death ... or vanishes into thin air. What follows in Jake's investigation finds him uncovering not just the island's difficult history but his own. Written in evocative, atmospheric prose, THE GUIDE TO THE FLYING ISLAND is at once a ghost story, a mystery, and a meditation on the ways our lives remain haunted by the secrets of our pasts.

Genres: Fiction, Book Club

93 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Lee Upton writes books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and literary criticism. Her comic novel, Tabitha, Get Up, will be released in May 2024 from Sagging Meniscus Press. A literary mystery is forthcoming in 2025. She is also the author of The Day Every Day Is, winner of the Saturnalia Books Prize, and two collections of short stories, The Tao of Humiliation, and Visitations, which were both awarded the Kirkus Star. The Tao of Humiliation received the BOA Short Fiction Prize. Her novella, The Guide to the Flying Island, was awarded the Miami University Novella Prize. Her collection of essays, Swallowing the Sea: On Writing & Ambition Boredom Purity & Secrecy, received ForeWord Review's Book of the Year Award in the category of books about writing. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic, Poetry, Harvard Review, American Poetry Review, and in three editions of Best American Poetry.

Reviews

[Ocean G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this at the Book Rack before my flight, pretty much purely because it was a short book, which suited me perfectly for an airplane flight. Anyway, it was rather slow, but the scattered twists and turns kept me interested. I can't really say I liked the sparse tone of the novel, but that's probably just me. Also I think the symbolism was over my head (this happens often. I guess I'm not one for symbolism). Still, it is short enough that the few odd happenings can get you through the rest.

[Skye Porter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immediately hooked