Community Library Notes
“Dear Edward” by Ann Napolitano is the story of the Adler family: Father Bruce, mom Jane, sons Eddie and Jordan. It begins when they are at the Newark airport on their way to California. Jordan, 15, refuses to have a scanner swipe his body, so they pat him down. Eddie, 12, holds his mother’s hand. The brothers are close friends, but different.
Linda Stollen is also waiting to board the flight. She has bought two pregnancy tests at the pharmacy. She swears never to ask her father and his third wife for anything again. Crispin Cox waits in his wheelchair for the plane to admit passengers. Bruce and Jane discuss Jordan’s behavior. Bruce thinks it was dangerous. At home school, he taught the boys to question everything. Other passengers include Benjamin Stillman, a black soldier who will see his grandmother at LAX, Mark Lazio, an executive who was written up in Forbes Magazine twice this year.
Crispin’s nurse fusses over him and he is nasty to her. He doesn’t want help. Some passengers applaud when Benjamin boards. Jane is in first class, but the boys and Bruce are in the last row. Mark is attracted to the flight attendant. She, Veronica, makes her usual public announcements.
Jane Adler sits next to Mark and watches the others with amusement. She knows her husband has mapped out the nearest exits. Crispin is flying to California for a trial cure for his cancer. He is very wealthy and old. A heavy woman named Florida hums a tune, and next to her Linda eats chocolate, Benjamin wishes he was in the cockpit, flying the plane. Bruce watches his boys as if for the first time. Author Napolitano describes each passenger’s individual traits.
That evening, the National Transportation Safety Board’s “go team” is at the crash site. The reader is shocked into reality. There were 191 killed, and one survivor, a boy. The boy’s aunt Lacy Curtis, will adopt him. She is Jane’s sister, a housewife, and the boy’s only living relative. John Curtis is her husband, a computer scientist. They have no children.
The news media speculates on the cause of the crash: a drunk pilot? An act of terrorism? The rainstorm? A passenger who went berserk? Edward has been in the hospital for a week. He hasn’t spoken since they told him what happened. He pretends to be sleeping. He listens. Both his legs are broken, one is in traction, and he holds a soft stuffed elephant under his arm. The movers found it on the truck and brought it to him. The president of the United States calls Edward and says the whole country is rooting for him.
He is released from the hospital when he can use crutches. The staff all come to say good-bye. He doesn’t know their names and can’t read their tags. The doctor has said traumatic brain injury may show in many different ways: panic, anxiety, hearing and smell may be affected. John, Lacey and Edward drive to their home, where Edward had only visited on special occasions.
After he sees people lined up on the road cheering for him, he gets out of the car and vomits until nothing is left. His aunt says, “You’re not okay, we’re not okay, nothing is okay.” Somehow this is the right thing to say.
Back on the plane, Florida looks back for the last time at the New York skyline. She pictures her most recent wedding on several acres in Vermont. It was a magical evening with Bobby, with a tent and dancing. Linda goes to the bathroom with her pregnancy test paper and thinks about the other men she has slept with. None were any good until Gary. She is going to meet him and hopes he will propose.
Linda looks in the mirror and thinks how she landed Gary. He studies whales and she loved whales as a kid. A pink plus sign appears on the test. “Yes,” she says.
John and Lacey’s house has a nice view of Greenwood lake. Edward hates being out of the hospital. Its routines and sounds had held him together. The next- door neighbor, Besa comes over with her little girl, Shay. Besa gives Edward a thermos of coffee. She reminds him of his mother.
Shay says she met Jordan one summer years ago. He’d jumped off the roof of their van. Edward knows Jordan would do that. At 10 p.m., after Joan and Lacey have gone to bed, Edward goes next door and asks to see Shay. She is in pajamas in bed. He sits in a chair and falls asleep. In the morning, he returns to Lacey’s and watches soap operas with Lacey for the morning.
When the author takes us back to the plane, Bruce is making small talk with Edward. Bruce plays with constellations and numbers. Tenure at Columbia would have kept them in New York. Jordan walks down the plane’s aisle and thinks of his girlfriend Mahira. They kissed constantly in the back room of the Deli her father owned.
Benjamin faces a desk job in California after one more operation on his wounds from the war. He had been wounded on patrol and had seen the shooter. He and his white partner Gavin, had become friends, close friends. Florida is able to see the past of every soul on the plane. She used to hide wounded men in the back of her store in the Philippines.
Back to Edward, he returns to Shay’s room every night. She tells him he is like Harry Potter because he has magic powers. Edward feels he is part of his aunt’s messy
life. She has had several miscarriages. But Besa tells him Lacey now has someone to care for. An envelope arrives with personal effects of the passengers on Flight 2977. John is angry that Lacey has opened it in front of Edward.
When the moving van brings Edward’s and Jordan’s old clothes, Edward wears Jordan’s and puts away the new ones his aunt has bought him. Gary shows Edward a photo of Linda. He had planned to propose to her when she landed in California. Edward recognizes her. He tells Gary she looked happy. Gary says the whales are waiting for him. Eddie will tell Shay about this later.
What happens to Edward and Shay as they grow older together? How does he shoulder the burden of the letters from the relatives of the 191 passengers? Author Napolitano based this story on two actual plane crashes she’d read about and the close feelings of her two sons. Find this fascinating novel on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
The Mendocino Community Library is at the corner of William and Little Lake streets, Mendocino. Hours: Monday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; closed Sundays and holidays, 707937-5773.