Episode 752: Joe Fassler - The Sky Was Ours
From prizewinning writer Joe Fassler comes a brilliant modern reimagining of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus as a story of obsession, longing, and the radical pursuit of utopia
It\u2019s 2005, and 24-year-old Jane is miserable. Overworked, buried in debt, she senses the life she wanted slipping away\u2014while the world around her veers badly off course, hurtling toward economic and ecological collapse. She wants to find something better. But she has no idea where to start.\xa0
In a sudden and unprecedented burst of rebellion, Jane decides to abandon everything she knows, leaving behind her relationships and responsibilities to go on the road. That\u2019s how she meets Barry, a brilliant and charismatic recluse living on an isolated homestead near New York\u2019s Canadian border. For years, in secret, Barry\u2019s chased an unlikely obsession: to build a pair of wings humans can fly in, with designs inspired by an obscure precursor to the Wright Brothers. It\u2019s no mere hobby. He\u2019s convinced his dream of flight will spark a revolution, delivering us from the degradation of modern capitalism and the climate chaos that awaits us.\xa0
Jane is captivated by Barry\u2019s radical vision, even as his experiments become more dangerous. But she\u2019s equally drawn to the enigmatic Ike, Barry\u2019s gentle, thoughtful son, who\u2019s known no other reality\u2014and who only wants to keep his father alive, tethered to ground and to reason.\xa0
So begins an inventive, dazzlingly beautiful story about the human desire for transcendence\u2014our longing to escape the mundane and glide into a euphoric future. Inspired by the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, The Sky Was Ours is a powerful and imaginative debut that explores the question: If you had access to technology that allowed you to escape the confines of your life, would you use it? And if Barry\u2019s wings really could change the world, would that be freedom?
Joe Fassler is a writer and editor based in Denver, Colorado. He is an MFA graduate of the\xa0 Iowa Writers\u2019 Workshop, and his fiction has appeared in The Boston Review and Electric Literature. In 2013, Fassler started The Atlantic\u2019s \u201cBy Heart\u201d series, in which he interviewed authors\u2014including Stephen King, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amy Tan, Khaled Hosseini, Carmen Maria Machado, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and more\u2014about the literature that shaped their lives and work. That led to editing Light the Dark, a book-length collection that included favorites from \u201cBy Heart\u201d alongside new contributions. Fassler\u2019s nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Guardian, Longreads, and The Best American Food Writing. Fassler currently teaches writing at Vermont\u2019s Sterling College. The Sky Was Ours is his first novel.
Buy the book from Wellington Square Bookshop - \u200b
https://www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com/book/9780143135685