A storyline from above
A man’s fall from the sky changes the lives of disparate, isolated characters
In an utterly modern, spare novel, author Kate Pullinger gives readers an accurate, insightful glimpse at the world today. It all begins when a man who has stowed himself in a plane’s landing gear falls from the sky just outside of London, England and lands on a middle- aged woman’s car.
The falling man is the catalyst that brings together Harriet, a married mother who works in radio in London; Yacub, a migrant worker from Pakistan who is stranded in a labour camp in Dubai; Emily, a young TV researcher whose father has just died; Michael, a businessman stranded in New York after a volcano erupts in Iceland and airspace shuts down; and Jack, a teenager who is experimenting with independence, drugs and girls.
The novel is in three parts, the first of which is in 2010 when the volcano in Iceland erupted, the second is in 2012, when the man falls from the sky and the third is in 2014.
Pullinger was inspired to write about a stowaway in a plane’s landing gear after reading an article in The Guardian newspaper in 2001.
The story told of how a body had landed in a supermarket car park in London, but the reporters uncovered that this body was just the most recent of many airplane stowaways to fall in the car park after planes lowered their wheels to land at a nearby airport. Pullinger writes in an author’s note that most people who attempt to stow away by climbing through the landing gear into the hold of an airplane die en route, crushed by the wheels or freezing to death.
But, she says, occasionally people survive these journeys.
In Landing Gear, the stowaway changes the perspectives and the lives of the other characters who were living isolated, disparate lives before he fell from the sky, and bond after his survival.
Pullinger, who was born in British Columbia and co- wrote the novel of the film The Piano with director Jane Campion, now lives in England. She is a professor of creative writing and digital media at Bath Spa University and won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction for her previous novel, The Mistress of Nothing.
Landing Gear is an extension of an online fiction project called Flight Paths: A Networked Novel ( flightpaths. net), which is an interactive novel/ website with images and text.
One of several stories in the book is that of Harriet and Michael, whose marriage is growing apart over time. Harriet is stalled in her career, but has ambitions to be something more. Michael is doing well in his career, but is isolated from both Harriet and his teenage son Jack.
The story of Jack is that of a typical teenager — ready to rebel and definitely experimenting, but basically a good kid. His story includes the death of an acquaintance after some bad drugs, a near miss with his own life, and burgeoning friendships with the fallen man, his would- be sister and a couple of girls.
Emily’s story is more complicated. Her adoptive father has recently died, leaving her orphaned and a bit rootless. She would like to search for her birth parents, but is not quite ready to meet them. She’s an aspiring filmmaker and prefers to stay behind the camera and out of the limelight as much as possible.
Yacub has his own story, which is one of poverty, globalization and the realities of the 21st century.
Pullinger’s description of Yacub’s first view of England — everything is very, very clean and it all lines up straight — is vivid and telling of his former life in Pakistan and Dubai.