Wingwalkers

January 17, 2022
Brown (Pride of Eden) returns with a boozy and nimble story of William Faulkner and two flying daredevils who meet by chance in 1934 at Mardi Gras. Faulkner grows up with a love for writing poetry and a fascination with airplanes, country barnstormers, and carnival balloonists in Oxford, Miss. At 13, he briefly pilots a homemade beanpole airplane before crashing, and later enlists with the RAF near the end of WWI and returns home with a limp and stories of dangerous escapades despite missing his chance at combat. A parallel narrative follows Zeno Marigold, a WWI ace pilot and student of the classics, and his wife, Della the Daring, who performs aerial stunts without a parachute in a skintight, silver lamé jumpsuit. Zeno and Della are poor, living hand-to-mouth as they dupe, hustle, and barnstorm their way through the South, working their way west to get into movies. Brown packs their vagabond lifestyle with plenty of trials and bootleg liquor, while Faulkner’s star as a script writer and novelist continues to rise, and, after a double jolt of heartbreak when both women he loves marry others, he marries Estelle. The final act features a life-changing, serendipitous encounter between Faulkner, Zeno, and Della. Brown crafts a heart-pounding plot, and his gorgeous descriptions of Southern terrain from the air resonate just as much. The result is both elegant and thrilling.

Starred review from February 1, 2022

True events enhance this tale of aerial daredevils Della and Zeno Marigold, who in the 1930s entertain East Coast crowds with aerial acrobatics in their well-used Jenny. Della shines as a wingwalker in her skin-fitting silver jumpsuit, while Zeno is the dashing Great War flying ace. Their vagabond life carries them westward to try their luck in Hollywood. Brown's parallel story begins in Oxford, MS, where Billy Falkner's childhood passion for flying never wanes, prompting his enlistment in the RAF in 1918, too late for action. Anxious to fly, he forms the Flying Falkners with his brothers, performing crowd-pleasing aerial stunts. A grown-up Bill follows another passion that boosts him to fame in Hollywood--writing poems and stories based on his imagined war exploits. Hungover during Mardi Gras, Bill catches a ride into New Orleans with Della and Zeno. At the bar, he listens to their dream of landing in Hollywood and tries to help, but a drunken Zeno storms out, tired of this fake flyer's war stories. Soon, Della and Zeno's prospects vanish, tragedy strikes the Falkners, and William Faulkner (the u from his RAF days) bases his new novel Pylon on his brief encounter with Zeno and Della. VERDICT Vivid writing pops off the page in this sixth novel from Brown (Fallen Land). A wondrous tale, mixing fact and fiction, with colorful details of the Depression-era United States as backdrop.--Donna Bettencourt

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