The Art of Uncontrolled Flight

by Kim Ponders

Book Overview

Annie Shaw was captivated as a child by her father's elusive presence and his love of flying. After tragically losing her mother, Annie follows her father into the Air Force and becomes one of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060786086
• ISBN13: 9780060786083
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

"She had fled, in that way, she was no better than him"

Annie Shaw has always wanted to emulate her father. A pilot in the Vietnam War and an Air force Veteran, he was a formidable personality, controlling Annie's life from a young age, often cold and emotionally distant, but always full of love and respect for his daughter. As a little girl, Annie decides that there's nothing she'd rather do than become a pilot, just like the man she so admires; she seems born to fly and would much rather eavesdrop on war stories than pass hors d`oeuvres at her parents` cocktail parties. Annie's father is also a bit of a philanderer, "her mother cried often for him to come home, and when he was home, she screamed at him to leave," his occasional infidelities perhaps responsible for her mother's untimely death. When a terrible house fire takes her life, Annie and her father become transients, living with a succession of his mistresses and wives, following her father into the houses of women he takes up with until he gets bored and then abandons them. Annie freely admits that she listens for her father, "I was my father either way." All she wanted was to join with him even in spirit, and she still believed at a point in her life, by working hard enough to crack the code of shapes and numbers in his path, that she would. Of course, Annie achieves her childhood dream, and becomes an aviator in her own right, partly because she seeks her father's approval, but also because she has an ineffable urge to feel distance between herself and the rest of the world thirty thousand feet below. After Annie becomes a pilot, she volunteers for any new place - Izmir, Dhahran, the Azores. She'd always be gone, gone before Dexter, her husband could stop and ask her or even ask why. She thinks she's going to catch her father, but she ends up forming a friendship with Jago, a fellow pilot. Jago is convinced they are living history; he's young and tantalized by glory, but her ill-fated romance with him threatens to bring Annie's personal and professional lives to a collision point. When Iraq invades Kuwait, Annie finds that she is deployed to Saudi Arabia, waiting for the Gulf War to begin. A tough, and independent woman, Annie holds her own inside the elite, male-dominated alliance of flying. Some of her fellow pilots want her to succeed, and some want her to fail, "but everybody looks at her as a woman first." Her life at the flying Academy was not so different from anywhere else, except that the expectations there were constant and clear. While her father thought she would fail, Annie becomes weirdly enchanted with schedules, and with details, seeing how they could be used to an advantage, demonstrating competence, and filling the vacancies left by an ambivalent heart. When a critical error places her crew at risk, Annie learns that flying in wartime carries a shadow far greater than the mystique it held for her when she was a child. Annie believes that the love of flying was like any other love affair, with its raw beginning,

I loved Annie from the first page

The details of military life are shared in a unique way, from a primarily female perspective, mixing snippets of death and devastation with love and passion. Ponders' writing is rich and textured. It demands a stong mind to read and makes no excuses. It was great to have a book ask for something back from the reader.

A beautifully written, compelling, and complex novel

The cover of Kim Ponders's debut novel shows a little girl, arms outstretched, chasing a model airplane that flies just outside her grasp. The image is strong but not particularly original; indeed, it seems almost obvious and perhaps a bit clichéd --- a girl chases a dream, the memories of her mother and the truths her father hides from her, all symbolized by the gliding, soaring, elusive object. It's a lovely image, but its sweet and simple symbolism does not do justice to the complexity of Ponders's themes and the stark unsentimentality of her prose. THE ART OF UNCONTROLLED FLIGHT is Annie's story. It begins when she is six years old, watching her mother emotionally disintegrate as they wait for her father's intermittent and brief returns from his service in the Air Force. And while cameo appearances by Annie's father only strengthen her adoration for him, they drive her mother slowly mad, to the point where she can no longer survive the perpetual state of emotional and physical limbo he has left her in. After her mother's death, Annie and her father bounce from town to town, woman to woman, family to family, and Annie's young adulthood is marked by perpetual movement. Her father may have left the Air Force but he remained always on the verge of takeoff. Annie's character is marked by a core determination and a sense of resolve. Her steely nature and adoration of her father lead her to pursue a career as a fighter pilot where she matter-of-factly suppresses any remnants of femininity in order to succeed. It is in the descriptions of Annie's military training, her relationships with her fellow pilots and the one event that almost destroys her that the novel itself really takes off. Annie's reflections on war and fear, on courage and sexuality, are distinctive and refreshing; her steely courage and unsentimentality mark her as an atypical brand of female narrator. Despite the novel's pretense to be a work of fiction, a quick scan of Ponders's bio reveals her own aviary and military history; we as readers can only imagine that much of Annie's vividness, the way she leaps off the page, is a testament both to the author's skill and to her very personal connection to Annie's military and emotional struggles. But the narrative appeals of the book are also due to Ponders's technical skill as a writer. The novel is short and spare, but never feels incomplete; despite her brisk and unsentimental narrative tone, Annie is a fully-drawn and compelling character. Through her penetrating, un-shirking gaze, we see both familiar themes of family and sexuality, guilt and past, as well as the unfamiliar themes of the early-'90s Middle Eastern conflict and the role of women in the Air Force. Finally, the novel itself is tightly woven, marked by moments of startling lyricism and lovely thematic symmetry. THE ART OF UNCONTROLLED FLIGHT begins and ends with an act of flight --- one unexpected and desperate, the other planned and prepared; one driven by anger, t

An Excellent Debut Novel

This an outstanding and intelligent debut novel in a style many authors sadly dare not risk. It is a clean portrait of a young woman who is taught by her parents early in life the fine art of emotional escape and who's chosen her own way out into the air of a combat zone. Ponders writing is clean and touching. She captures flight from the pilot seat in all its details and emotions. She also hints at how war might make us become bolder, truer versions of ourselves. This was a beautifully written and thankfully unsentimental debut novel. I recommend it to all who love great writing.

A great debut novel

On the surface, The Art of Uncontrolled Flight by Kim Ponders is the story of Annie, who grows up in a military family and goes on to pilot a fighter jet during the Gulf War. The power of this book, though, is in the underlying stories that Ponders weaves into the book. The relationships Annie has with the men in her life -- her father, her husband, and her fellow Air Force officers as well as the relationships she has with women - her mother and her father's girlfriends - make this story. The focus Ponders places on Annie's thoughts and feelings adds emotional depth to the story. The book is divided into three sections. The first section begins with Annie as a child and moves back and forth between her childhood and the present. The transitions from childhood to adulthood are smooth and realistic - an event in the present brings back a memory from the past. This first section lays the groundwork for understanding the choices Annie makes as an adult. The second section takes place during Annie's deployment during the Gulf War. Central to this section of the book is Annie's relationship with a fellow pilot, Jago. Annie's childhood experiences and relationships provide the reader with an understanding of the choices she makes during this period in her life. The final section is about Annie's life after the Gulf War. The Art of Uncontrolled Flight is an exciting, memorable read! I didn't want to put this book down. Ponders deftly moves between Annie's emotions and the events that shaped her and the choices she makes. I felt like I knew and understood Annie by the end of this book. The story is gripping and the ending is perfect.