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A Novel
by Kate Folk
Book Reviewed by:Cross the jet bridge with Linda, a frequent flyer with an unusual obsession, in this "razor-sharp and tender-hearted" (Lily Brooks-Dalton) debut novel by the acclaimed author of Out There.
Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges her true passion, taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant, because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could...
Linda knows that she can't tell anyone she's sexually obsessed with planes. Nor can she reveal her belief that it's her destiny to "marry" one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, a catastrophic event that would unite her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she's always dreamed of.
Both subversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.
Chapter 1
Call me Linda. My tale begins in January, when I was invited to a Vision Board Brunch hosted by my coworker Karina Carvalho. According to Karina, the vision boards, crafted from common drugstore materials, could be used to manifest anything a person wanted in life. I was receptive to the idea, as I'd always subscribed to the notion of an intelligent universe, a web of predestination in which we all were tangled. Only such a cosmic force could bring about my dream of marriage to a plane—what others vulgarly refer to as a "plane crash." I believed this was my destiny: for a plane to recognize me as his soulmate midflight and, overcome with passion, relinquish his grip on the sky, hurtling us to earth in a carnage that would meld our souls for eternity. I couldn't alter my fate, but perhaps, with the vision board's help, I could hasten its arrival.
Karina had told me about previous VBBs, which her friend group convened at the start of each quarter, but this was the first one...
Linda's sexuality is obviously the novel's hook, and it is very interesting to learn about what it means to her and how she sees herself and her potential partner(s). She does not identify with objectum sexuality (an attraction to objects) because "Planes were not static objects, but sentient beings with rich inner lives." Who are any of us to say she's wrong? But tragically, Linda also feels shame, thinking of herself as a "pervert," a brand of self-loathing that will be familiar to many whose sexuality does not align with cisheteronormativity. Perhaps more than anything else, Sky Daddy is about the power of friendship to transform a person's life, particularly when that person believes themselves to be an outcast...continued
Full Review
(932 words)
(Reviewed by Lisa Butts).
Ed Park, author of Same Bed Different Dreams
Sky Daddy is outrageously funny and smartly unsettling, as if J. G. Ballard did a story arc for New Girl. It's an audacious comic novel about the love that really dare not say its name—also probably the worst (or ... best?) book to read on a plane. Gary Shteyngart, author of Our Country Friends
This is the craziest, funniest book I've read in a while. And I read a lot of crazy, funny books. Get your boarding pass out and get ready for some turbulence. Sky Daddy is insane. Henry Hoke, author of Open Throat
Hilarious, refreshing, and perverse, Sky Daddy is a soaring portrait of modern obsession, of knowing exactly what you want and trying to wrestle it from the jaws of our ridiculous world. Kate Folk's sharp sentences and sidesplitting characters sparkle with glorious cringe. Do not miss this flight.
Linda, the narrator of Sky Daddy, is sexually and romantically attracted to commercial airplanes. This phenomenon could be viewed as a subset of objectum sexuality (OS) — defined as romantic or sexual attraction to an object — although Linda insists that her interest in planes is different from "the woman who married the Eiffel Tower, or another who was in love with a trombone" because planes are not "static objects, but sentient beings with rich inner lives."
The first woman Linda refers to is Erica Eiffel (nee La Brie), an Army veteran and competitive archer who held a commitment ceremony for herself and the Eiffel Tower in 2007. In an essay for the website of Objectùm-Sexuality Internationale (OSI), an ...
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