Taking Off

by Eric Kraft

One day, middle-aged Manhattanite Peter Leroy receives an unsettling postcard from a childhood classmate. With his wife, Albertine, he returns to his hometown of Babbington, Long Island, and finds it both transformed and strangely the same.

For Babbington has been "redefined" as a theme park, in a scheme to draw tourists to the struggling community, complete with trained actors, cultural interpreters, and carefully designed simulations of small-town 1950s life. On the wall of Legends restaurant, Peter sees his own a picture of the triumphant day when, as a fifteen-year-old boy, he landed on Babbington's Main Street in the aerocycle he had built in his parents' garage, having flown four thousand miles to New Mexico and back.

Hailed in newspapers as the "Birdboy of Babbington," the youthful inventor reveled in his fame---but never disclosed the truth behind his flight. Now Peter wants to set the record straight---and with Albertine as his muse and conscience, he begins.

Taking Off is the first in a trilogy of novels about Peter Leroy's magical flight and its digressions along the way. Funny, warm, wise, and artful, this book---like all of its companion novels about Peter and his world---explores matters little and large with a light touch. Readers familiar with and new to these novels will delight in the wide-ranging invention and imagination of Peter's creator, Eric Kraft.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Eric Kraft grew up in Babylon, New York, on the South Shore of Long Island, where he was for a time co-owner and co-captain of a clam boat, which sank. He met or invented the character Peter Leroy while dozing over a German lesson during his first year at Harvard. The following year, he married his muse, Madeline Canning; they have two sons. After earning a Master’s Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Kraft taught school in the Boston area for a while, moonlighting as a rock music critic for the Boston Phoenix. Since then, he has undertaken a variety of hackwork to support the Kraft ménage and the writing of the voluminous work of fiction that he calls The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. He has been the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; was, briefly, chairman of PEN New England; and has been awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature.

Reviews

[Kayleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book flips back and forth between 15 year old Peter and adult Peter. It is sadly light on flying, given the title and premise, but I enjoy the relationship of older Peter and his lovely Albertine.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good enough that i want to read the sequals, but not enough that I'm running out to find them.

[Lisa P · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was really 2.5 stars. I enjoyed it enough, but it wasn't extraordinary. I like the theme of flight and the author's tone, but it started to drag about 2/3 through.

[Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

The umpteenth volume of Eric Kraft's lovely Peter Leroy series.