Dear American Airlines Review

It's time for another

of Jonathan Miles' novel Dear American Airlines

Here's an excerpt from the book's jacket if you need a little explanation!

Bennie Ford, a fifty-three-year-old failed poet turned translator, is traveling to his estranged daughter’s wedding when his flight is canceled. Stuck with thousands of fuming passengers in the purgatory of O’Hare International Airport, he watches the clock tick and realizes that he will miss the ceremony. Frustrated, irate, and helpless, Bennie does the only thing he can: he starts to write a letter. But what begins as a hilariously excoriating demand for a refund soon becomes a lament for a life gone awry, for years misspent, talent wasted, and happiness lost. Bennie’s writing is infused with a sense of remorse for the actions of a lifetime—and made all the more urgent by the fading hope that if he can just make it to the wedding, he might have a chance to do something right.

This novel is one of my absolute favorites! I've read Dear American Airlines once a year for the past three years and I just adore it. I read it months ago and I still get caught up in thinking about its beautiful moments. 

Like when Bennie's proud Southern mother, Miss Willa, reduced by a stroke to scrawling messages to him on post-it notes, suspects he will commit suicide after his daughter's wedding. As he is preparing to leave for the airport, she hands him a post-it that says only, "no."

And when Bennie tries to win the love of his life, Stella, back by screaming her name at the bottom of their apartment steps. At the time they were living in New Orleans. He immediately stops screaming, realizing the ridiculousness of life.  Brooding and bitter at literature for stealing his scene, for the rest of his life he swears that if she had a different name, he would have won her back.

I love how Jonathan Miles weaves Bennie's past (the stories of his childhood, his love for Stella and their daughter) his present (hilarious anecdotes about the absurdity of airport travel) and his uncertain future (for twenty years he has been living only for walking his daughter down the aisle. When that is done...) all into one LETTER. It's a letter people! GAH Brilliant. Hilarious. Touching. Sad. Loved it.

At just under 200 pages, it's a quick read and would be a perfect airport companion novel (Irony I'm sure Bennie would appreciate). If I were a Hollywood director I would snatch this up. The movie version would have OSCAR written all over it.