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Landing Gear
From the award-winning author of The Mistress of Nothing comes a highly imaginative story of colliding worlds and extraordinary connections.
Spring 2010. A volcano unexpectedly erupts in Iceland and airspace is shut down over Europe. Harriet works in local radio in London, and with most of her colleagues abroad, she seizes a unique career opportunity. Her husband, Michael, stuck in New York on business, travels to visit an old flame, and their teenage son, Jack, feeling liberated from normal life, takes an unexpected risk only to find himself in trouble. Meanwhile Emily, a young TV researcher, loses her adoptive father to a heart attack, and half a world away, a Pakistani migrant worker named Yacub is stranded in a Dubai labor camp.
Two years later, Yacub, attempting to stow away, falls out of the landing gear of an airplane onto Harriet’s car in a London supermarket parking lot—and survives—while Emily accidentally captures it all on film. Yacub’s sudden arrival in the lives of Harriet, Jack, Michael, and Emily catapults these characters into a series of life-changing events, ultimately revealing the tenuous, often unexpected ties that bind us together.
Inspired by real-life accounts of airplane stowaways, Landing Gear is about the complex texture of modern life, and how we fight the loneliness of the nuclear family to hold on to one another.
Spring 2010. A volcano unexpectedly erupts in Iceland and airspace is shut down over Europe. Harriet works in local radio in London, and with most of her colleagues abroad, she seizes a unique career opportunity. Her husband, Michael, stuck in New York on business, travels to visit an old flame, and their teenage son, Jack, feeling liberated from normal life, takes an unexpected risk only to find himself in trouble. Meanwhile Emily, a young TV researcher, loses her adoptive father to a heart attack, and half a world away, a Pakistani migrant worker named Yacub is stranded in a Dubai labor camp.
Two years later, Yacub, attempting to stow away, falls out of the landing gear of an airplane onto Harriet’s car in a London supermarket parking lot—and survives—while Emily accidentally captures it all on film. Yacub’s sudden arrival in the lives of Harriet, Jack, Michael, and Emily catapults these characters into a series of life-changing events, ultimately revealing the tenuous, often unexpected ties that bind us together.
Inspired by real-life accounts of airplane stowaways, Landing Gear is about the complex texture of modern life, and how we fight the loneliness of the nuclear family to hold on to one another.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published April 15, 2014
About the author
Kate Pullinger
41 books84 followersKate Pullinger is an award-winning writer of novels, short stories and digital works. Her most recent book is FOREST GREEN, out in Canada in August 2020. She is Professor of Creative Writing and Digital Media at Bath Spa University.
Born in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Kate dropped out of McGill University after a year and a half of not studying philosophy and literature. She then spent a year working in a copper mine in the Yukon where she crushed rocks and saved money. She spent that money travelling and ended up in London, England, where she lives with her husband and two children.
Kate’s other books include The Mistress of Nothing, winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction 2009, Landing Gear, A Little Stranger and The Last Time I Saw Jane, as well as the ghost tale, Weird Sister, and the erotic feminist vampire novel Where Does Kissing End? These four titles have recently been re-released in new ebook editions.
Kate’s digital works include Inanimate Alice (www.inanimatealice.com), an episodic online multimedia novel and Flight Paths: A Networked Novel (www.flightpaths.net)
You can find out more about Kate and her work at www.katepullinger.com
Born in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Kate dropped out of McGill University after a year and a half of not studying philosophy and literature. She then spent a year working in a copper mine in the Yukon where she crushed rocks and saved money. She spent that money travelling and ended up in London, England, where she lives with her husband and two children.
Kate’s other books include The Mistress of Nothing, winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction 2009, Landing Gear, A Little Stranger and The Last Time I Saw Jane, as well as the ghost tale, Weird Sister, and the erotic feminist vampire novel Where Does Kissing End? These four titles have recently been re-released in new ebook editions.
Kate’s digital works include Inanimate Alice (www.inanimatealice.com), an episodic online multimedia novel and Flight Paths: A Networked Novel (www.flightpaths.net)
You can find out more about Kate and her work at www.katepullinger.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
May 21, 2014
What happened to this book? It really had me excited to read it. It did not end up that way for me. It started out with Yacub falling out of the sky onto Harriet's car. She offers to take him home with her. Then the story flashes back in time. I know the author was trying to give me insight into everyone's lives and how they got to where they are now in their lives. However, it took 122 pages to tell this story. I felt nothing for anyone except for Yacub. He was the only one with an interesting story to share. Harriet was depressing, her husband is unforgettable, and her son is a brat. If it was not for the fact, of how this book was laid out by the first half being about the past and me not jumping ahead then I would have given up on the book a while ago.
When I finally got to the second half of the story, it started to get interesting. However it did not last long. It kind of jumped around and still none of the characters were interesting. So I skimmed the second half of the story. I do like the author's imagination to be able to dream up a story from a newspaper article. Yes, this story is loosely based around an actual true event. Someone did actually fall from the sky as a stow away in a plane and landed on a car. That person did not survive.
When I finally got to the second half of the story, it started to get interesting. However it did not last long. It kind of jumped around and still none of the characters were interesting. So I skimmed the second half of the story. I do like the author's imagination to be able to dream up a story from a newspaper article. Yes, this story is loosely based around an actual true event. Someone did actually fall from the sky as a stow away in a plane and landed on a car. That person did not survive.
August 11, 2016
I will admit, this book has an intriguing concept. It is inspired by an actual event of someone falling from the landing gear of a plane (and, more recently, a teenager successfully stowed away in the landing gear of a plane and made it all the way to Hawaii!) and I was quite looking forward to reading it.
How can I explain my feelings about this book? It's like you get a puzzle to put together, only to realize that half the pieces don't fit anywhere. This is one of those well-intentioned stories that just never came together for me. The first part of the book, during the Icelandic volcanic eruption, seemed to try to set up the characters, but what happened to them really didn't matter that much in the second part, when Yacub landed on Harriet's car. Then, the third part, in which I think Pullinger tried to tie everything together, just fell flat.
It's too bad because I think the premise of this book showed promise. I felt the characters of Michael and Jack were superfluous to the story as it was written and I would have liked to have seen them more wrapped up into the central plot. I felt a bit like Pullinger was manipulating me badly with the storyline between Harriet and Emily and I really think that she could have finessed that a bit more. And Yacub--I really wanted to Pullinger to dig deeper into this character than she did.
I really wish I was writing a positive review of this book, but it just wasn't there for me.
I received an electronic copy of this book in return for an honest review. I received no other compensation for this post.
How can I explain my feelings about this book? It's like you get a puzzle to put together, only to realize that half the pieces don't fit anywhere. This is one of those well-intentioned stories that just never came together for me. The first part of the book, during the Icelandic volcanic eruption, seemed to try to set up the characters, but what happened to them really didn't matter that much in the second part, when Yacub landed on Harriet's car. Then, the third part, in which I think Pullinger tried to tie everything together, just fell flat.
It's too bad because I think the premise of this book showed promise. I felt the characters of Michael and Jack were superfluous to the story as it was written and I would have liked to have seen them more wrapped up into the central plot. I felt a bit like Pullinger was manipulating me badly with the storyline between Harriet and Emily and I really think that she could have finessed that a bit more. And Yacub--I really wanted to Pullinger to dig deeper into this character than she did.
I really wish I was writing a positive review of this book, but it just wasn't there for me.
I received an electronic copy of this book in return for an honest review. I received no other compensation for this post.
January 5, 2014
I read an advanced copy of Pullinger’s new novel, Landing Gear, which comes out this spring.
It’s a page-turner that explores our modern world, family relations and how, when we least expect it, a stranger can fall right into our lives. I mean this literally. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but let’s just say you’ll be keeping your eye on the sky the next time you go to the grocery store.
Pullinger, a former winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award, does a bang-up job of capturing her characters; the way they connect and disconnect, their yearning and their secrets. I burned through Landing Gear in a couple of days. That doesn’t happen often for me. ‘Nuff said.
Watch for novel landing this April. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
It’s a page-turner that explores our modern world, family relations and how, when we least expect it, a stranger can fall right into our lives. I mean this literally. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but let’s just say you’ll be keeping your eye on the sky the next time you go to the grocery store.
Pullinger, a former winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award, does a bang-up job of capturing her characters; the way they connect and disconnect, their yearning and their secrets. I burned through Landing Gear in a couple of days. That doesn’t happen often for me. ‘Nuff said.
Watch for novel landing this April. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
May 27, 2014
A gem of a book, and just what I needed after The Goldfinch. A quiet story of relationships and family, hinging on the sudden appearance of a young stowaway who falls out of the landing gear of a plane. The characters are beautifully drawn, particularly Jack, the teenage boy. While the book does not tie everything up nearly in a bow, it is so much the better for it - allowing the reader a glimpse into the lives of the characters just as they intersect. Would love to rate this four and a half stars as it was nearly perfect. I just felt there could have been a couple more short sections from Yacub's (the stowaway) viewpoint. Otherwise, a wonderful book.
March 19, 2016
I can't believe that I'm stumped for words to properly describe Landing Gear, the latest novel by Kate Pullinger. Briefly put, it's a gem.
Initially, the short chapters which introduced each character were disconnected and I felt were awkwardly disjointed. Snippets of plot revealed themselves, isolated around these individuals who shared no common thread, jumping back and forth between them. The point of this, however, is brilliantly revealed as the novel evolves, layer by layer, with greater depth and intimacy until it's satisfying end, beautifully joined by hope and love.
Yacub was was working construction in Dubai, lured from Pakistan with an artificial promise of excellent wages, a chance to help his sister and the devastating result of a bankrupt company stranding him without resources. In London, Emily's father has just died, leaving her to wonder if she should now search for her birth mother. Harriet has decided that the day has come for her to break out of radio and move to promote herself and her career in television reporting. Michael, her husband, is a Canadian émigré whose life in London as an actuary deals with data, but does not relate his personal status or history to the city where he has lived longest. And Jack, their fourteen year old son is drifting, invisible to them in front of video games and hiding among peers who experiment dangerously with drugs.
Tucked as a stowaway under the landing gear of the airplane, believing he was destined for America, Yacub falls- and lands on the roof of Harriet's car. His life is transformed. The shape of his life affects others' significantly. In order to help Yacub, everyone must become transparent, learn to trust and give up their onerous personal secrets.
There are some special insights which Pullinger skillfully weaves through her story, and which have no doubt come from her own experience as a transplanted Canadian to Britain, about the ways immigrants adjust. Michael chooses to leave his past behind for his new home and discovers that "the new place is no longer new, and you find yourself burdened with a past after all. ... And he coped with this by becoming absent.", whereas Yacub decided that "London is the place to be.", an opportunity in the present.
There is a poignant section, when Jack talks about a holiday in Spain, as a child. "My dad was really happy on that holiday. He said that his love of swimming in fresh water, in rivers, in lakes, was the thing that made him feel most Canadian... I knew what he meant. There's something about clean, fresh water that makes you feel alive."
In a way, his father's nostalgia imperils Jack, indirectly at a critical point in the novel. Pullinger is so subtle in tying Jack's seemingly random yet subconscious need for connection, that it almost floats past the reader until the book cover is closed, and then flowers with magnificent intent.
*(I found it interesting that freshwater swimming is not as prevalent in Britain as in Canada. Pullinger's personal experience, again, with the abundance of fresh water bodies utilized by Canadians for sport and leisure, allowed her to create a hook which was subtle, yet dramatic, with the novel's characters.)
Facebook has an important role in the story, used as social media is in real life scenarios, sometimes in secretly searching for and checking on those who might not know about those actions, or as a source of information when a situation is dire. The digital world, Pullinger seems to intimate, is a reflection of those who use it, for good or for duplicity.
Landing Gear is an old-fashioned novel, full of heart but written for our modern complicated times. I recommend it highly.
Initially, the short chapters which introduced each character were disconnected and I felt were awkwardly disjointed. Snippets of plot revealed themselves, isolated around these individuals who shared no common thread, jumping back and forth between them. The point of this, however, is brilliantly revealed as the novel evolves, layer by layer, with greater depth and intimacy until it's satisfying end, beautifully joined by hope and love.
Yacub was was working construction in Dubai, lured from Pakistan with an artificial promise of excellent wages, a chance to help his sister and the devastating result of a bankrupt company stranding him without resources. In London, Emily's father has just died, leaving her to wonder if she should now search for her birth mother. Harriet has decided that the day has come for her to break out of radio and move to promote herself and her career in television reporting. Michael, her husband, is a Canadian émigré whose life in London as an actuary deals with data, but does not relate his personal status or history to the city where he has lived longest. And Jack, their fourteen year old son is drifting, invisible to them in front of video games and hiding among peers who experiment dangerously with drugs.
Tucked as a stowaway under the landing gear of the airplane, believing he was destined for America, Yacub falls- and lands on the roof of Harriet's car. His life is transformed. The shape of his life affects others' significantly. In order to help Yacub, everyone must become transparent, learn to trust and give up their onerous personal secrets.
There are some special insights which Pullinger skillfully weaves through her story, and which have no doubt come from her own experience as a transplanted Canadian to Britain, about the ways immigrants adjust. Michael chooses to leave his past behind for his new home and discovers that "the new place is no longer new, and you find yourself burdened with a past after all. ... And he coped with this by becoming absent.", whereas Yacub decided that "London is the place to be.", an opportunity in the present.
There is a poignant section, when Jack talks about a holiday in Spain, as a child. "My dad was really happy on that holiday. He said that his love of swimming in fresh water, in rivers, in lakes, was the thing that made him feel most Canadian... I knew what he meant. There's something about clean, fresh water that makes you feel alive."
In a way, his father's nostalgia imperils Jack, indirectly at a critical point in the novel. Pullinger is so subtle in tying Jack's seemingly random yet subconscious need for connection, that it almost floats past the reader until the book cover is closed, and then flowers with magnificent intent.
*(I found it interesting that freshwater swimming is not as prevalent in Britain as in Canada. Pullinger's personal experience, again, with the abundance of fresh water bodies utilized by Canadians for sport and leisure, allowed her to create a hook which was subtle, yet dramatic, with the novel's characters.)
Facebook has an important role in the story, used as social media is in real life scenarios, sometimes in secretly searching for and checking on those who might not know about those actions, or as a source of information when a situation is dire. The digital world, Pullinger seems to intimate, is a reflection of those who use it, for good or for duplicity.
Landing Gear is an old-fashioned novel, full of heart but written for our modern complicated times. I recommend it highly.
May 23, 2014
Landing Gear was inspired by real-life accounts of airplane stowaways. It is very different from anything I've read recently. Highly original in her writing, Kate Pullinger has the ability to switch between characters in the novels initially very short chapters without confusing the reader.
Landing Gear opens with Harriet, one of our main protagonists at the Supermarket, minding her own business loading her shopping into her car when suddenly a man is falling from the sky, right on to her car. Is this possible? Is he dead? Is Harriet dead?
Landing Gear then switches back a few years to the shut-down of all European air space following the eruption of Mt. Eyjafjallajokull and its all consuming ash cloud. At this time Harriet is working at a local radio station desperately trying to make it in to television. She seizes her chance to capture the 'quietness' of London in the absence of air traffic as her big break.
Here we also meet the other characters; Harriet's husband Michael is stuck in the US on business, her son Jack hanging out with his mates in places that he shouldn't be, and Emily, not part of the family, but somehow you feel she should be. And then there is Yacub, working in Dubai, desperately trying to make some money to send back to his family in Pakistan.
These characters are not only separated by the ash-cloud, but something deeper. It is the arrival of Yacub some years later straight on to Harriet's car that somehow brings them all together and teaches them all something about themselves.
Landing Gear is a unique read, one that I would highly recommened to anyone looking for something a little different.
You won't be disappointed.
Landing Gear opens with Harriet, one of our main protagonists at the Supermarket, minding her own business loading her shopping into her car when suddenly a man is falling from the sky, right on to her car. Is this possible? Is he dead? Is Harriet dead?
Landing Gear then switches back a few years to the shut-down of all European air space following the eruption of Mt. Eyjafjallajokull and its all consuming ash cloud. At this time Harriet is working at a local radio station desperately trying to make it in to television. She seizes her chance to capture the 'quietness' of London in the absence of air traffic as her big break.
Here we also meet the other characters; Harriet's husband Michael is stuck in the US on business, her son Jack hanging out with his mates in places that he shouldn't be, and Emily, not part of the family, but somehow you feel she should be. And then there is Yacub, working in Dubai, desperately trying to make some money to send back to his family in Pakistan.
These characters are not only separated by the ash-cloud, but something deeper. It is the arrival of Yacub some years later straight on to Harriet's car that somehow brings them all together and teaches them all something about themselves.
Landing Gear is a unique read, one that I would highly recommened to anyone looking for something a little different.
You won't be disappointed.
May 27, 2014
Author Kate Pullinger does a magnificent job of pulling together the stories of one woman's family and their new visitor who "fell from the sky" in her latest novel, “Landing Gear.” Taking the story, that brings to mind recent news headlines and is based on actual events that have occurred in London, from the present to the past and back again, Pullinger’s characters come fully and dramatically to life as the story progresses along. She even adds a mysterious element to the tale with the frequent appearances of Emily, a girl trying to find her biological mother and seems to think Harriet is the one. Surprisingly, it’s with Emily’s help that finally gives Harriet’s family and Yacub some peace and closure to many of their problems.
There is no doubt that author Kate Pullinger’s writing talent should shine with “Landing Gear.” She is well-known for being the co-writer with movie director Jane Campion of the novel of the Academy Award winning movie, “The Piano,” and has won many awards for her own writing. A jewel in Pullinger’s crown, “Landing Gear” is a fascinating story that those who love fiction with a modern twist with enjoy immensely.
There is no doubt that author Kate Pullinger’s writing talent should shine with “Landing Gear.” She is well-known for being the co-writer with movie director Jane Campion of the novel of the Academy Award winning movie, “The Piano,” and has won many awards for her own writing. A jewel in Pullinger’s crown, “Landing Gear” is a fascinating story that those who love fiction with a modern twist with enjoy immensely.
August 22, 2014
Really great book. I enjoyed it, and in the process of discussing it with Jonathan, I was reminded how events can inspire stories. But you have to do something with them. Pullinger does just that.
Quill & Quire review:
"Landing Gear is a sprawling story about the frenetic quality of contemporary life. It addresses teen drug culture, middle-age ennui, the challenges of globalization, and the changing role of the media, exploring the intersection of modern technology and the modern family. When the volcano explodes in Iceland, Harriet, Jake, Michael, and Emily cannot decide if what transpires is “idyllic or apocalyptic.”
The novel’s great achievement is that it never feels sprawling. Nor does it feel overly ambitious. Rather, there is an unexpected lightness to the narration, a quality that can be attributed to Pullinger’s sharp and precise prose. The book is constructed in short chapters with strong narrative momentum and tension, a strategy to capture today’s distracted reader. A fitting follow-up to its award-winning predecessor, Landing Gear is a beautiful and profound story about finding love, peace, and meaning in a too-busy world."
Quill & Quire review:
"Landing Gear is a sprawling story about the frenetic quality of contemporary life. It addresses teen drug culture, middle-age ennui, the challenges of globalization, and the changing role of the media, exploring the intersection of modern technology and the modern family. When the volcano explodes in Iceland, Harriet, Jake, Michael, and Emily cannot decide if what transpires is “idyllic or apocalyptic.”
The novel’s great achievement is that it never feels sprawling. Nor does it feel overly ambitious. Rather, there is an unexpected lightness to the narration, a quality that can be attributed to Pullinger’s sharp and precise prose. The book is constructed in short chapters with strong narrative momentum and tension, a strategy to capture today’s distracted reader. A fitting follow-up to its award-winning predecessor, Landing Gear is a beautiful and profound story about finding love, peace, and meaning in a too-busy world."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 13, 2014
Enjoyable, engaging read. Liked the way the different stories were woven into one another. Characters were on the edge of being too eccentric for my tastes, but she always pulled it back to universals ... love, loss, family loyalties, human kindness. Emily's film served to tie everything in at the end and cover a couple of years of ground quickly for all those involved, but it didn't seem like the strongest part of the novel to me.
October 10, 2020
I enjoyed the author's writing style as usual but felt a bit detached from most of the characters outside of Yacub. He sounded fully fleshed but some of the action seemed a bit like urban fantasy and I lost interest.
April 27, 2014
I chose to put this book on my holds list for two reasons - Kate Pullinger, of course - and I was a tiny bit fascinated by the idea that someone could fall from an airplane and survive. In the advance press for the book there was a woman mentioned, Harriet, who saw the man falling from the sky and then land on her car, while she was unpacking the groceries from her cart in the grocery store parking lot. I think it was the glaring contrast of these two things - man falling from an airplane and woman unpacking her grocery cart - that made this novel seem like a must read for me. I could never imagine the circumstances which would propel a person to hide in the landing gear of an airplane but I have certainly transferred groceries from a car to the trunk of my car. More times than I can even dare to calculate (how many hours in a lifetime, of moving milk from the store to the car and then to the fridge - I shudder to think about it).
Kate Pullinger's writing is quietly funny and spot on observational of the things that go on in every day lives. She has a teen boy character who is struggling with being cool and making friends. She has a married couple who have become so familiar with each other that there is a risk this repetition might break them apart. She has a single woman, grieving over the loss of her father, and wondering whether she should contact her birth parents. And then Kate brings us Yacub, the man who falls from the sky and changes the lives of everyone else in the book. The commonplace lives she has detailed make her characters seem like friends and when Yacub arrives it turns the book into something else. There is a little bit of the unknown in him and that transfers into not knowing - couldn't possibly guess - how the book ends for the people we've gotten to know so well.
It's an immensely satisfying book. There is no way to anticipate what will happen next to Harriet, her family, or Yacub so you have to keep reading (again, way past your bedtime) to see what will happen. There is a kind of magic in this book, even though people do very average things on each page. Talk to friends, play video games, make sandwiches, drink wine. Regular things but all shuffled together in this wonderful way that brings home the larger ideas Kate Pullinger is highlighting in her story. It's a very 'current' book with reference to things that have happened in the last 4 years, but she occasionally takes the reader back in time as her characters think about the past. A lovely book that is hard to explain but I'll be giving it to patrons of all ages because it is the kind of story that people will enjoy talking about.
Kate Pullinger's writing is quietly funny and spot on observational of the things that go on in every day lives. She has a teen boy character who is struggling with being cool and making friends. She has a married couple who have become so familiar with each other that there is a risk this repetition might break them apart. She has a single woman, grieving over the loss of her father, and wondering whether she should contact her birth parents. And then Kate brings us Yacub, the man who falls from the sky and changes the lives of everyone else in the book. The commonplace lives she has detailed make her characters seem like friends and when Yacub arrives it turns the book into something else. There is a little bit of the unknown in him and that transfers into not knowing - couldn't possibly guess - how the book ends for the people we've gotten to know so well.
It's an immensely satisfying book. There is no way to anticipate what will happen next to Harriet, her family, or Yacub so you have to keep reading (again, way past your bedtime) to see what will happen. There is a kind of magic in this book, even though people do very average things on each page. Talk to friends, play video games, make sandwiches, drink wine. Regular things but all shuffled together in this wonderful way that brings home the larger ideas Kate Pullinger is highlighting in her story. It's a very 'current' book with reference to things that have happened in the last 4 years, but she occasionally takes the reader back in time as her characters think about the past. A lovely book that is hard to explain but I'll be giving it to patrons of all ages because it is the kind of story that people will enjoy talking about.
May 3, 2014
"Landing Gear" is a quite remarkable book -- on one level an intricate interplay of disparate characters with an intriguing plot set in an expansive global context -- and on another level the source code for a fascinating experiment in digital media.
Kate Pullinger has much-praised experience in exploring the collision between western characters and Islamic society. Her novel "Mistress of Nothing," that won Canada's 2010 Governor-General's award for best fiction, traced a complex relationship among two English women and a Muslim man in 1860's Egypt. Now in this novel such a collision is explored in the context of contemporary Britain, only with an even more dramatic beginning. After a period of displacement as an exploited migrant worker in Dubai, Yacub escapes his Pakistan homeland hiding in the landing gear of an international aircraft, finally to fall when the wheels descend, crashing onto the roof of Harriet's car in a shopping centre parking lot. Suddenly this new character is in the middle of the ongoing turmoil that is Harriet's life -- where tensions with her husband are fierce, her son is caught up in teenage drug conflicts, she has lost her job when attacked by someone who may be a former lover, and she is being stalked by a young woman who thinks she is her mother.
Pullinger writes with a lightness of touch despite some of these dark themes, and a vivid picture emerges of the vibrant confusion in which all her characters live. Quite improbably it may seem, Yacub develops as the catalyst who somehow, despite his desperate past, brings some measure of resolution to these complications. The result becomes a satisfying novel about the trials of refugees, coming-of-age in modern England and the struggle to reclaim a marriage by coming to terms with the hidden past.
Then there is that second level of this book. Kate Pullinger and some of her colleagues are working at developing a new form of digitalized book, and this novel is the source book for www.flightpaths.net -- so far a set of six digital entries conveying segments of this story in forms of digital content combining excerpts from the novel and video entries conceptualizing what is taking place. Flightpaths is itself an interesting set of presentations -- but when combined with the full novel, that has just been published in 2014, the result is a powerful example of how reading and net presentations can heighten the effectiveness of each medium.
This book is not just an admirable novel in its own right. It is also a signpost to new complementarities and forms of media that may restructure the future.
Kate Pullinger has much-praised experience in exploring the collision between western characters and Islamic society. Her novel "Mistress of Nothing," that won Canada's 2010 Governor-General's award for best fiction, traced a complex relationship among two English women and a Muslim man in 1860's Egypt. Now in this novel such a collision is explored in the context of contemporary Britain, only with an even more dramatic beginning. After a period of displacement as an exploited migrant worker in Dubai, Yacub escapes his Pakistan homeland hiding in the landing gear of an international aircraft, finally to fall when the wheels descend, crashing onto the roof of Harriet's car in a shopping centre parking lot. Suddenly this new character is in the middle of the ongoing turmoil that is Harriet's life -- where tensions with her husband are fierce, her son is caught up in teenage drug conflicts, she has lost her job when attacked by someone who may be a former lover, and she is being stalked by a young woman who thinks she is her mother.
Pullinger writes with a lightness of touch despite some of these dark themes, and a vivid picture emerges of the vibrant confusion in which all her characters live. Quite improbably it may seem, Yacub develops as the catalyst who somehow, despite his desperate past, brings some measure of resolution to these complications. The result becomes a satisfying novel about the trials of refugees, coming-of-age in modern England and the struggle to reclaim a marriage by coming to terms with the hidden past.
Then there is that second level of this book. Kate Pullinger and some of her colleagues are working at developing a new form of digitalized book, and this novel is the source book for www.flightpaths.net -- so far a set of six digital entries conveying segments of this story in forms of digital content combining excerpts from the novel and video entries conceptualizing what is taking place. Flightpaths is itself an interesting set of presentations -- but when combined with the full novel, that has just been published in 2014, the result is a powerful example of how reading and net presentations can heighten the effectiveness of each medium.
This book is not just an admirable novel in its own right. It is also a signpost to new complementarities and forms of media that may restructure the future.
March 27, 2014
I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of this via a Goodreads First Reads giveaway and oh my goodness I am so happy that I did! I got through this book in a few hours and it was such a joy to read. Landing Gear was highly original, thought provoking, and a breath of fresh air; it was different from any book that I have read lately and I very much enjoyed it.
Plot Landing Gear is the story of Harriet, Michael, Jack, Emily and Yacub - a man who falls from the sky and changes their lives in ways they never could have imagined. The second I read the Goodreads synopsis for this book I was immediately intrigued... I mean a man falling out of a plane and SURVIVING?! That's definitely not something one hears everyday. Anyways back to plot summary, this book centres around a central group of characters and the intricate ways that their lives intertwine. It's a story about love, hardships, and what it truly means to be a family. There are moments of elation, and times of painful hardships, but seeing the way these characters live through it all was highly engaging and there was never a dull moment in this book.
Like I said before, I really loved Landing Gear. I thought that each of the characters were well developed and I loved how the story was told through these multiple perspectives. We really got to see them grow as individuals, but also as a family. We meet these characters initially in 2010 just after the volcano erupted in Iceland causing a mass shutdown of all planes. The first part of this book deals with the repercussions of this, what the characters were doing at the time, and what their lives were like in the absence of the noise. I won't say much more, but the book spans these characters lives over the course of the next few years, and it was definitely satisfying to be able to trace from where these people began their journey to how it ends.
All in all this was definitely an interesting and unique book. It's a page turner and once you start reading you won't have any desire to put it down. The prose is beautiful and easy to read, and the story itself is one that will leave you thinking even after the book is done. I highly, HIGHLY recommend giving this book a read when it hits shelves on April 15th, 2014 :)
Plot Landing Gear is the story of Harriet, Michael, Jack, Emily and Yacub - a man who falls from the sky and changes their lives in ways they never could have imagined. The second I read the Goodreads synopsis for this book I was immediately intrigued... I mean a man falling out of a plane and SURVIVING?! That's definitely not something one hears everyday. Anyways back to plot summary, this book centres around a central group of characters and the intricate ways that their lives intertwine. It's a story about love, hardships, and what it truly means to be a family. There are moments of elation, and times of painful hardships, but seeing the way these characters live through it all was highly engaging and there was never a dull moment in this book.
Like I said before, I really loved Landing Gear. I thought that each of the characters were well developed and I loved how the story was told through these multiple perspectives. We really got to see them grow as individuals, but also as a family. We meet these characters initially in 2010 just after the volcano erupted in Iceland causing a mass shutdown of all planes. The first part of this book deals with the repercussions of this, what the characters were doing at the time, and what their lives were like in the absence of the noise. I won't say much more, but the book spans these characters lives over the course of the next few years, and it was definitely satisfying to be able to trace from where these people began their journey to how it ends.
All in all this was definitely an interesting and unique book. It's a page turner and once you start reading you won't have any desire to put it down. The prose is beautiful and easy to read, and the story itself is one that will leave you thinking even after the book is done. I highly, HIGHLY recommend giving this book a read when it hits shelves on April 15th, 2014 :)
March 14, 2014
I received this book as a Goodreads Giveaway.
A wonderful story about how a family separating during the airspace shutdown of 2010 find themselves brought together by a man from Pakistan stowing away over an aircraft landing gear with dreams of making it to the US and an orphaned filmmaker with bright red hair.
Pullinger gracefully separates and entwines her characters. Harriet, Jack and Michael live in the same house, but completely separate lives after the "events" that took place during the ash cloud of 2010. At the same time, Emily and Yacub are living their own lives in London and Dubai respectively. In 2012, they begin to come together. Emily following Harriet while Harriet follows Emily. And Yacub literally falling into Harriet's life (and crushing her car as a consequence). The characters are real, flawed, and simply trying to find where they belong.
Normally I do not like the books with short chapters, I find them choppy and lacking, but I did not find that with Landing Gear. The short chapters emphasised how the characters were apart. We would hear from Harriet, then Jack, etc., whereas as the story progresses and people are brought together, the chapters lengthen as more characters are featured together and their separate stories become one story about family.
This is my first time reading anything by Kate Pullinger, and after reading Landing Gear, I will be sure to check out more of Pullinger's work. This is a well-written piece that makes you care for the characters and want to keep reading to find out how they come together and what happened in their past to bring them together in the present.
A wonderful story about how a family separating during the airspace shutdown of 2010 find themselves brought together by a man from Pakistan stowing away over an aircraft landing gear with dreams of making it to the US and an orphaned filmmaker with bright red hair.
Pullinger gracefully separates and entwines her characters. Harriet, Jack and Michael live in the same house, but completely separate lives after the "events" that took place during the ash cloud of 2010. At the same time, Emily and Yacub are living their own lives in London and Dubai respectively. In 2012, they begin to come together. Emily following Harriet while Harriet follows Emily. And Yacub literally falling into Harriet's life (and crushing her car as a consequence). The characters are real, flawed, and simply trying to find where they belong.
Normally I do not like the books with short chapters, I find them choppy and lacking, but I did not find that with Landing Gear. The short chapters emphasised how the characters were apart. We would hear from Harriet, then Jack, etc., whereas as the story progresses and people are brought together, the chapters lengthen as more characters are featured together and their separate stories become one story about family.
This is my first time reading anything by Kate Pullinger, and after reading Landing Gear, I will be sure to check out more of Pullinger's work. This is a well-written piece that makes you care for the characters and want to keep reading to find out how they come together and what happened in their past to bring them together in the present.
August 21, 2014
I almost quit by 20 pages for I was confused by the short chapters and random sentences. However, since I mostly read anything put before me I kept on and was glad I had. The premise is very original. The characters include one family of three who are fairly alienated or at least oblivious of one another, a man who fell out of a plane onto the car of the woman in the family, and a young woman who photos the family woman.
As the plot moves along the characters become more involved with each other. Normally their lives are uneventful but little events do happen:
The Father Michael, who normally works many long hours has an affair with a former girlfriend.
The teenage son tries drugs.
The Mother Harriett, mostly shops for something to do until one day a man falls out of the sky onto her car.
Yacub, who is Indian and has worked in Kuwait survives a fall of 30,000 feet.
The young woman works on a documentary about the others.
All ties together in a satisfactory manner as denoument.
As the plot moves along the characters become more involved with each other. Normally their lives are uneventful but little events do happen:
The Father Michael, who normally works many long hours has an affair with a former girlfriend.
The teenage son tries drugs.
The Mother Harriett, mostly shops for something to do until one day a man falls out of the sky onto her car.
Yacub, who is Indian and has worked in Kuwait survives a fall of 30,000 feet.
The young woman works on a documentary about the others.
All ties together in a satisfactory manner as denoument.
April 20, 2014
A novel filled with boring, flat characters who lead mundane, ordinary, predictable, average lives in London. There is one main character from Pakistan, though. A few exciting events occur that rattle the characters' realities, but these are predictable. There is no suspense. I laughed only once throughout the novel, and not very hard. Pullinger's writing style is colloquial, making it easy to read but unexciting. I would not recommend this novel.
May 17, 2014
This story is framed by the incident of the ash cloud in the Spring of 2010 that resulted from the eruption of a volcano in Iceland and grounded all flights for a few days.
This book is an odd collection of events that happened and then are all forced to come together somehow. While it is somewhat entertaining, it did not blow me away. The characters are all a bit flat with not much dimension.
I read a previous book of Pullinger's, The Mistress of Nothing and quite enjoyed that novel.
This book is an odd collection of events that happened and then are all forced to come together somehow. While it is somewhat entertaining, it did not blow me away. The characters are all a bit flat with not much dimension.
I read a previous book of Pullinger's, The Mistress of Nothing and quite enjoyed that novel.
May 27, 2014
The eruption of a volcano in Iceland grounding all of the planes impacts Harriet's family.
When Yacub falls from the landing gear of a plane onto the roof of Harriet's car, a chain of events begins that will bring all of the characters Harriet, her husband Michael, her son Jack and a woman named Emily together. A very fast read and interesting take on the impact an isolated event can have on people.
When Yacub falls from the landing gear of a plane onto the roof of Harriet's car, a chain of events begins that will bring all of the characters Harriet, her husband Michael, her son Jack and a woman named Emily together. A very fast read and interesting take on the impact an isolated event can have on people.
June 29, 2017
I read this book insanely fast. I am a fast reader in general, but seriously, I flew through it. It was quick and it was lovely and it told the story it wanted to tell in exactly the right amount of words and detail without being overly pretentious or trying to be something it wasn’t. Books like this are too rare and I want more of them in my life...
For full review: http://thoughtsonmybookshelf.wordpres...
For full review: http://thoughtsonmybookshelf.wordpres...
January 5, 2016
I enjoyed this book about a woman in London in the throws of dealing with her distant son and unfaithful husband when a man falls out if the sky and lands on her car. However, apart from being born in Canada, the author now lives in England so why is this a book every Canadian should read? And I'm not convinced that it's a good example of a book about starting over.
June 30, 2015
This was good but strange - about a week or so after reading it the news had a story about a man found on the roof of a building in London. It was in the area of a flight path so officials think he was a stowaway in the plane wheels which is one of the plot threads in this novel.
January 29, 2016
Bravo, Kate Pullinger! Somewhat similar to Penelope Lively, Pullinger shows how unexpected incidents in life affect the path we are on. Sometimes this leads to creating secrets, sometimes to revealing them or having them revealed for us. All about "Consequences", as PL knows!
May 20, 2014
A sweet, summer read!
May 28, 2014
Fast read, enjoyed the writing that follows the various character in their own voices.
June 20, 2014
Quirky fiction, with a little poetry mixed in. I liked it more than I thought I would.
July 14, 2014
Great read - definitely recommend it.
August 12, 2014
Great book with a clever premise that echoed through the pages that continually pulled me in! Another fine book Kate Pullinger!
decided-against
July 21, 2017I won a copy in a Goodreads giveaway.
May 9, 2024
3.5
This was a quirky book - but quite enjoyable. It opens in 2012 in Richmond, England, when Harriett (an unhappy housewife who is always grocery shopping), is returning to her car when she sees a body falling from the sky, who lands on her car. This body is Yacob, a young Pakistani man, who had left Karachi hidden in the landing gear of plane, hoping to get to the USA. He survives and she takes him to her house, where in short order, her family "meet" Yacob.
The book weaves the past lives of Yacob, and Harriett's family from 2010 to the present and then to 2014. I liked how the book shows how a family, who is not a biological family, can come together and grow.
It was a nice read even though somewhat improbable. The writer had got the inspiration for the book from such an incident where the person stowed in the landing gear had survived.
This was a quirky book - but quite enjoyable. It opens in 2012 in Richmond, England, when Harriett (an unhappy housewife who is always grocery shopping), is returning to her car when she sees a body falling from the sky, who lands on her car. This body is Yacob, a young Pakistani man, who had left Karachi hidden in the landing gear of plane, hoping to get to the USA. He survives and she takes him to her house, where in short order, her family "meet" Yacob.
The book weaves the past lives of Yacob, and Harriett's family from 2010 to the present and then to 2014. I liked how the book shows how a family, who is not a biological family, can come together and grow.
It was a nice read even though somewhat improbable. The writer had got the inspiration for the book from such an incident where the person stowed in the landing gear had survived.
July 29, 2025
I won an advanced copy of this book from a Goodreads giveaway. It is my first time reading Kate Pullinger's work and I will definitely be reading more by her. I was instantly pulled into the story and felt that I got to know the characters very quickly. If I'd had the time to read this in one sitting I definitely would have. I was so absorbed by the way it was written, each chapter switches from one character's perspective to another, jumping between 5 characters total. In some chapters it goes in and out of up to three characters thoughts. I found this to be a very original way of writing. It allowed me to get a full idea of exactly how everyone was experiencing the situations that they go through.
This is a novel about a broken family who is able to be healed by the arrival of Yacub and the subsequent events. I found it to be very inspiring.
This is a novel about a broken family who is able to be healed by the arrival of Yacub and the subsequent events. I found it to be very inspiring.
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