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Flight: A Novel of Beirut and the French Countryside
Can marriage survive war and temptation? In the spring of 1976, the crackle of machine-gun fire resonates throughout Beirut, Lebanon. Finlay Fortin, a professor at the American University of Beirut, is anxious to leave the country with his family. But his wife Mo, an ambitious photojournalist, insists on staying, hoping to advance her career by documenting the battle-scarred city. And his fifteen-year-old daughter, Anouk, refuses to acknowledge the obvious danger and abandon the city she loves. When Anouk's friend Danny is kidnapped at gunpoint and Anouk is later trapped in a battle's crossfire, Finlay is desperate to protect his daughter. He forcibly takes her and flees Beirut, leaving his wife Mo behind. Finlay and Anouk move to the rural uplands in southwest France, and Finlay is soon busy repairing the dilapidated house they live in. Anouk, however, bitterly struggles with missing her mother and the guilt she feels about Danny's abduction. As Finlay settles into his new life as the village baker, he finds himself drawn to his warmhearted neighbor, Colette. His marriage to Mo was cool and distant—after spending years deprived of affection, Finlay has found love. When Finlay’s wife decides to join her family in France, the news she brings about Danny, and the repercussions of the war will profoundly affect this family in ways no one could have anticipated. Jean Grant's second novel, Flight , is a "moving and timely exploration of the choices we make in parentting, in politics, and in love," writes A. Manette Ansay, author of Vinegar Hill.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 1, 2017
2 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Jean Grant
9 books21 followersJean Grant is a writer, an adventurer, a traveler and an expatriate, having lived in Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and France. She taught at the American University of Beirut and was a staff reporter for Arab News. She has explored sixty countries. She speaks fluent French as well as rusty Arabic and Spanish. She was awarded the 2007 Langston Hughes Award for Literary Fiction. Her novel The Burning Veil was a finalist for ForeWord Reviews’s 2011 Book of the Year Award in the categories of fiction-religious and fiction-multicultural.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 24, 2018
Jean Grant, author of “Flight” hates stereotypes. So if you’re looking for a potboiler full of stereotyped Arab terrorists and belly dancers.... well, read it anyway, it’s a heck of a good read and you may even learn a thing or two.
During the first year of the Civil War in Lebanon. Finlay Fortin is teaching English Literature at the American University of Beirut, his wife Maureen (Mo) has ambitions to be a war photographer, and their 15-year old daughter Anouk is... well, a 15-year-old who’s grown up in the expatriate community of Beirut. She’s a cheerleader, has a crush on a boy in her class, and doesn’t think anything is going to happen to her.
The story is told from expatriates’ points of view, which can’t help be different from people “back in the US.” They can’t believe Americans aren’t more aware of the awful situation where they are. There’s a feeling that, once the US congress sees how bad it is in Lebanon, they’ll DO something. But when Finlay buys a US newspaper, he’s let down to see the lead story is about the theft of a bicentennial flag in New Hampshire.
Jean Grant has lived in Beirut, and her writing is imbued with a wonderful sense of place.There are so many details you wouldn’t expect unless, like Jean, you’d been there. Schoolkids cheer when fishermen in the harbor dynamite fish, something they’d never get away with in peacetime. Students at the University find it hard to concentrate on Finlay’s Eng. Lit. classes. One of them, Zaki, had to drop out to support his family when his father was shot, “yanked off a bus at a roadblock and killed for believing in the wrong religion.” When Finlay sees him under a car, Zaki casually explains he’s just doing a favor for a friend. The reader thinks, how nice, fixing a car. And then he says, “Checking for a car bomb.” And through it all, people accept that life goes on – if not as normal, then as a new normal.
Finlay wants to take his family away from the danger he recognizes all too well, Mo recognizes the danger but is determined to ignore it in order to get taken on by AP, and Anouk feels perfectly safe where she is. When Finlay finally arranges a flight out to France, where the family has a house in the small village of Espérac, Mo refuses to come. “Someone has to get those pictures.”
Superficially, the tension eases when Finlay and Anouk are away from the bombing and shooting, but in fact the inner conflicts increase. Anouk’s world has been Beirut and her family, and she’s overwhelmed and furious at the separation from her mother. She hates France, the village seems primitive compared to Beirut, and the French are impossibly sophisticated one moment and peasant-earthy the next. When she’s afraid to drink cocoa made with unpasteurized milk, her host replies, “Baf! I know the cow in question.”
Jean brings her knowledge of France into her writing as well, not only in her vivid pictures of the village and countryside, but also the sensuous descriptions of food. You can practically taste the warm fresh crusty bread.
Gradually, as Anouk comes to understand family histories – hers and others she meets – she realizes the Lebanese aren’t the only ones affected by wars. The French have been torn apart by WWI, WWII, and the Algerian fight for independence. In the village cemetery, one headstone is permanently stained because a woman trained her poodle to piss on the marker of the man who persecuted her mother.
I loved the insight into the different ways the trauma of history affects both places and individual people.
“Flight” is subtle. It grapples with deep issues, but through personal stories, not “explanations.” Some of the issues have no answers; the resolution comes in accommodating one’s life to them.
During the first year of the Civil War in Lebanon. Finlay Fortin is teaching English Literature at the American University of Beirut, his wife Maureen (Mo) has ambitions to be a war photographer, and their 15-year old daughter Anouk is... well, a 15-year-old who’s grown up in the expatriate community of Beirut. She’s a cheerleader, has a crush on a boy in her class, and doesn’t think anything is going to happen to her.
The story is told from expatriates’ points of view, which can’t help be different from people “back in the US.” They can’t believe Americans aren’t more aware of the awful situation where they are. There’s a feeling that, once the US congress sees how bad it is in Lebanon, they’ll DO something. But when Finlay buys a US newspaper, he’s let down to see the lead story is about the theft of a bicentennial flag in New Hampshire.
Jean Grant has lived in Beirut, and her writing is imbued with a wonderful sense of place.There are so many details you wouldn’t expect unless, like Jean, you’d been there. Schoolkids cheer when fishermen in the harbor dynamite fish, something they’d never get away with in peacetime. Students at the University find it hard to concentrate on Finlay’s Eng. Lit. classes. One of them, Zaki, had to drop out to support his family when his father was shot, “yanked off a bus at a roadblock and killed for believing in the wrong religion.” When Finlay sees him under a car, Zaki casually explains he’s just doing a favor for a friend. The reader thinks, how nice, fixing a car. And then he says, “Checking for a car bomb.” And through it all, people accept that life goes on – if not as normal, then as a new normal.
Finlay wants to take his family away from the danger he recognizes all too well, Mo recognizes the danger but is determined to ignore it in order to get taken on by AP, and Anouk feels perfectly safe where she is. When Finlay finally arranges a flight out to France, where the family has a house in the small village of Espérac, Mo refuses to come. “Someone has to get those pictures.”
Superficially, the tension eases when Finlay and Anouk are away from the bombing and shooting, but in fact the inner conflicts increase. Anouk’s world has been Beirut and her family, and she’s overwhelmed and furious at the separation from her mother. She hates France, the village seems primitive compared to Beirut, and the French are impossibly sophisticated one moment and peasant-earthy the next. When she’s afraid to drink cocoa made with unpasteurized milk, her host replies, “Baf! I know the cow in question.”
Jean brings her knowledge of France into her writing as well, not only in her vivid pictures of the village and countryside, but also the sensuous descriptions of food. You can practically taste the warm fresh crusty bread.
Gradually, as Anouk comes to understand family histories – hers and others she meets – she realizes the Lebanese aren’t the only ones affected by wars. The French have been torn apart by WWI, WWII, and the Algerian fight for independence. In the village cemetery, one headstone is permanently stained because a woman trained her poodle to piss on the marker of the man who persecuted her mother.
I loved the insight into the different ways the trauma of history affects both places and individual people.
“Flight” is subtle. It grapples with deep issues, but through personal stories, not “explanations.” Some of the issues have no answers; the resolution comes in accommodating one’s life to them.
March 6, 2018
This book had a lot of promise and potential, and I thought I would like it about 20 pages in. Then I found a major timeline issue. And sorry, but I just can't get past that. A character got told something and runs off. Then a few pages later, she gets told again and it's as if she'd never been told in the first place. And plane tickets that were bought for the next day? Yeah, they get given to one of the characters two days later.
These are issues I just can't get past in a book, because if they are so glaring that I notice them immediately, it's a problem. A problem that calls for a good editor. And they also mean I can't read past them, so down the book goes, and onto my never-going-to-finish shelf.
Alas, I kind of wish this hadn't happened and I could have read the whole book.
These are issues I just can't get past in a book, because if they are so glaring that I notice them immediately, it's a problem. A problem that calls for a good editor. And they also mean I can't read past them, so down the book goes, and onto my never-going-to-finish shelf.
Alas, I kind of wish this hadn't happened and I could have read the whole book.
November 5, 2017
Jean Grant's newest book, 'Flight' has become, for me, one of those books you can pick up anytime, let a page fall open, and suddenly you're transported back into the heart of Beirut, or into a small village in France. I read it first quickly, then again slowly, and both times I was impressed with the ease of familiarity I found with her characters. Taking turns having father, Finley, and daughter, Anouk narrate keeps the flow of the book tight and perky. The story itself will grab you instantly, and by the end, you'll wish there were a sequel; you have come to know the characters as friends long lost, or not yet met. It isn't a sappy story of love and wine and belly dancers. Rather, it it a thoughtful, careful insight into a family, torn by circumstances, careers, and adolescence. I would recommend this book to anyone who's ever wished for a month or two in the South of France, and in general, to anyone who likes a book you can read more than once and never get bored!
January 7, 2019
The book was a nice read, especially the attention to details in some parts of the story when the author was describing beirut and the universiry campus in particular.
However some events were told more than once which made them redundant. The alternation between Finlay and Anouk's point of view was confusing.
When it came to the characters, Anouk's age was revealed until the end of book. It should have been mentioned before to make sense of some events.
Mo's overall character is admirable but her carelessness and the fact that she didnt show
any affection towards her daughter in the first half of the book was disturbing.
Finlay falling in love as soon as he arrived to France was rushed.
Some events were rushed, others were not even told. However the book in general is a nice and quick read.
However some events were told more than once which made them redundant. The alternation between Finlay and Anouk's point of view was confusing.
When it came to the characters, Anouk's age was revealed until the end of book. It should have been mentioned before to make sense of some events.
Mo's overall character is admirable but her carelessness and the fact that she didnt show
any affection towards her daughter in the first half of the book was disturbing.
Finlay falling in love as soon as he arrived to France was rushed.
Some events were rushed, others were not even told. However the book in general is a nice and quick read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 8, 2017
This wonderful novel explores a marriage that is torn when a husband and wife disagree on whether to leave war-torn Beirut in the 1970s. Finlay and his daughter Anouk move to a family-owned house in a French village, where they soon discover a host of engaging neighbors and even a new lease on love. With vivid portrayals and well-etched descriptions, this book catches you up in a spell you don't want to leave.
April 18, 2018
Read as a book club choice, I was excited to start another book about the impact of war on families. This one was not able to deliver on its potential to develop characters and smoothly transition in time & place. I struggled to finish and ended up feeling many issues were left hanging.
June 20, 2025
Captures the feel of the city and portrays the civil war in a gentle yet uncompromisingly truthful way. Big themes and big feels. Caught by surprise by the sudden ending!
April 12, 2018
This story swept me away. Set in Beirut, Lebanon in the 1970's, as the country slips into civil war, an American family has to decide whether to leave its adopted home there. Seeking refuge in a French village, the new arrivals discover its beauty, its lovable characters and its secrets too. Generations of war have affected the town and its families, just as the 'troubles' in Beirut loom large in the life of the American family. Seeped in a delicate sensuality, the story is told with the intimacy of a friend, and the suspense of a masterful storyteller. It's a multi-generational coming-of-age story, a sympathetic telling of how war up-ends our world, one heart at a time. This homage to country living, community, loyalty and love is highly recommended.
April 10, 2018
This book was self published, I believe, by an amateur author. I did finish it! The story is interesting but it is definitely written by an amateur.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews