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Flying Lessons
Australian writer Johnson's intriguing American debut is a poetic tale of family heritage, the power of memory and one woman's attempt to find herself. Ria Lubrano longs to take ``one absurd leap which will smash the blueprint'' of her well-ordered life and connect her not only to the Australian tableland, ``the land of genesis,'' but also to ancestors buried there and to her missing brother, Scotty. Short chapters, each with a theme of its own, alternate Ria's point of view with that of her grandmother Emma; Ria travels toward the colorfully described tableland as Emma escapes her autocratic father by a forbidden marriage to a foreigner. Emma, like Ria, has stored up dreams and memories of a beloved brother to aid in her quest for freedom; the two women's experiences tie in with chapter themes to create a temporal mosaic. Plot tension builds slowly as Emma discovers longed-for happiness and Ria an unexpected link to her family's past.
- GenresAustralia
261 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Susan Johnson
15 books63 followersSusan Johnson was shortlisted for the 1991 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for her novel Flying Lessons, shortlisted for the 1994 National Book Council's Banjo Award for the novel A Big Life and shortlisted for the National Biography Award 2000 for her memoir A Better Woman. Her other books include Hungry Ghosts, Messages from Chaos, Women Love Sex (editor and contributor) and Life in Seven Mistakes. The Broken Book was shortlisted for the 2005 Nita B Kibble Award; the Best Fiction Book section of the Queensland Premier's Literary Award; the Westfield/Waverley Library Literary Award, and the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal Award for an Outstanding Australian Literary Work. Her last novel, My Hundred Lovers, was published in 2012 to critical acclaim.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This author is entered with 2 spaces.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This author is entered with 2 spaces.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 27, 2017
Flying Lesson was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Prize in 1990 and deservedly so. This a very accomplished work for a second novel. It also employs a structure that I’m sure was quite cutting edge at the time - one contemporary timeline and one historical timeline. The historical timeline unfolds in the past tense and the contemporary in the present tense.
In the 1920s Emma James falls in love with the son of an Italian immigrant. In the 1980s, her granddaughter Ria leaves Sydney without a trace. Immediately I fell under the spell of Johnson’s writing, particularly in her creation of the restless and lost Ria. And her brother Scotty who is lost too.
“But Ria and Scotty had other grandparents, long dead, in graves on a tableland high above sea. They had these grandparents in photography and dream, in paternal myth and memory. Their father was an orphan and they listened to his stories until the people in them began to breathe as surely as the living.”
Of course when the story shifts to Emma some sixty years earlier and we find out about her life - her difficult father, her brothers and sisters including a brother killed in the first world war, her sister Beth who is a primary school teacher just like Emma and her father, then it becomes imperative to find out what happened to Emma and the man she falls in love with.
As Emma’s life becomes clearer, particularly the problems with her father, Ria’s life becomes shipwrecked in the tableland where her grandparents used to live. In trying to find her brother she has lost herself. She manages to do some work at a nearby healing centre in exchange for the use of a caravan by the river.
“She is trying to let something go: to let Scotty go, to let him be lost if he wants it; to let Emma go, and allow all family bones to lie in private graves crooked, or straight. She is trying to lay the ghosts of the wandering dead and the living; and turn wounded eyes from the search for the elusive blue-birds.”
I love the juxtaposition of the storylines, particularly towards the end when the full extent of what families do to each other is revealed; how character traits can skip a generation and how what we are not told can sometimes be more important than what we are told. Highly recommended.
In the 1920s Emma James falls in love with the son of an Italian immigrant. In the 1980s, her granddaughter Ria leaves Sydney without a trace. Immediately I fell under the spell of Johnson’s writing, particularly in her creation of the restless and lost Ria. And her brother Scotty who is lost too.
“But Ria and Scotty had other grandparents, long dead, in graves on a tableland high above sea. They had these grandparents in photography and dream, in paternal myth and memory. Their father was an orphan and they listened to his stories until the people in them began to breathe as surely as the living.”
Of course when the story shifts to Emma some sixty years earlier and we find out about her life - her difficult father, her brothers and sisters including a brother killed in the first world war, her sister Beth who is a primary school teacher just like Emma and her father, then it becomes imperative to find out what happened to Emma and the man she falls in love with.
As Emma’s life becomes clearer, particularly the problems with her father, Ria’s life becomes shipwrecked in the tableland where her grandparents used to live. In trying to find her brother she has lost herself. She manages to do some work at a nearby healing centre in exchange for the use of a caravan by the river.
“She is trying to let something go: to let Scotty go, to let him be lost if he wants it; to let Emma go, and allow all family bones to lie in private graves crooked, or straight. She is trying to lay the ghosts of the wandering dead and the living; and turn wounded eyes from the search for the elusive blue-birds.”
I love the juxtaposition of the storylines, particularly towards the end when the full extent of what families do to each other is revealed; how character traits can skip a generation and how what we are not told can sometimes be more important than what we are told. Highly recommended.
July 2, 2023
Reading this felt like a lot of effort for a smallish book. I think maybe I didn’t understand the point of it all (although I quite enjoyed the sense of place in descriptions of the tablelands).
There seemed to be too many themes that weren’t fully explored. I found the characters were all strangely inaccessible, and what were we supposed to make of Ria’s malformed shoulder bone, Scotty’s possible albinism, and Emma’s hairy forearms?
There seemed to be too many themes that weren’t fully explored. I found the characters were all strangely inaccessible, and what were we supposed to make of Ria’s malformed shoulder bone, Scotty’s possible albinism, and Emma’s hairy forearms?
February 11, 2024
Lovely book. Made me think a lot of thoughts that I never have before.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews