Cuppy and Stew: The Bombing of Flight 629, A Love Story

by Eric Goodman

In November, 1955, a young man in Denver, Colorado, hid twenty-five sticks of dynamite and a crude timer in his mother's suitcase. In what the FBI would term the first example of American air piracy, United Flight 629 blew up twelve minutes after taking off, killing everyone aboard. Part historical novel, part memoir, CUPPY AND STEW tells one family's story before and after the bomb went off. Narrated by a young girl whose parents died on Flight 629, CUPPY AND STEW evokes the not-so-innocent 1950's, and the struggles of Cuppy and Stew's daughters to survive their parents' deaths. Prize-winning novelist Eric Goodman's sixth novel is not only his most moving but also his most personal. His wife's parents perished on United 629.

Genres: Fiction

Unknown Binding

First published May 15, 2020

About the author

MOTHER OF BOURBON is Eric Goodman's 1st historical novel and 8th overall. It is also his first collaboration.
Goodman is probably best-known for the first two books of the Singer Saga, which are multi-generational novels telling the story of a father, "Jewish Joe" Singer and his son, Jess, who both pitch for the New York Mets. IN DAYS OF AWE, which focuses on Joe's story, appeared in 1991, published by Knopf. CURVEBALL, which focuses on Jess's story (a closeted gay man with a great curve) was published in 2024 by Post Hill Press.

For many years Goodman directed the Creative Writing Program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Reviews

[Bob Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Goodman’s novel/memoir, Cuppy and Stew, is not about travel, but about how an instant in time, this one an instant in which a commercial airliner is blown out of the sky by an onboard bomb, can forever change the lives of a family, or what’s left of it.

The details of the bombing, which are based on one of the first such incidents in aviation history, take up hardly more than a few sentences of the book. The details are that 23-year-old Jack Gilbert Graham, who had a grievance against his mother and wanted the insurance money her death would bring him, put her on a flight from Denver, Colorado, to Portland, Oregon, with a suitcase in which, unknown to her, he had packed 25 sticks of dynamite and a timer.

The plane, a Douglas DC-6, designated as United Airlines Flight 629, with 44 passengers and crew, exploded 12 minutes after takeoff, killing everyone on board. Graham was soon after executed by the State of Colorado, not for the bombing, because at the time there was no U.S. law against bombing a commercial airplane, but for the murder of his mother.

Among the victims, none of which, other than his mother, Graham had any connection with, was a couple, Cuppy and Stew Morgan, who left behind two daughters, Sherry, 14, and Susan, 12. The book is billed as a love story, but in reality it seems to be a story, narrated mostly by the younger daughter, of how the entire fabric of love, and life, can be made complicated by seemingly unrelated things over which we have little control. Things such as that the narrator, the fictional Susan Morgan, is not so very different from the author's wife, also named Susan Morgan, whose parents, Cuppy and Stew, died in the bombing.

[Melissa Blacketer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutally honest look at family, love, loss and the different realities of survival

Cuppy and Stew is both an unconventional love story and the story of survival in the aftermath of the bombing of United Airlines Flight 629.

Part I opens with Cuppy and Stew: Not wanting to ‘stand it’, but instead to live life with gusto, Stew bucks both his family and culture to be with the love of his life, Cuppy. Head over heels in love with Stew, Cuppy finds herself enchanted. After having two beautiful daughters together, Cuppy relishes her luck; she is still madly in love with her husband and he remains smitten with her.

Part II is Cuppy & Stew’s daughters’ story: Susan and Sherry, pre- and early teen when Cuppy and Stew are killed on flight UA 629. The girls’ journey is strained by the legacy left them: Stew’s family is estranged and absent, Cuppy’s relatives unfit or harsh, and the greedy welfare system is unabashedly blind.

Goodman tells the story through the narrative eyes of Susan Morgan, Cuppy and Stew’s youngest daughter. It is a nostalgic glimpse of a unique couple in love, followed by a page turning account of the haunting, disturbing, infuriating journey the children must navigate into young adulthood.

[Christine Hemp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Goodman’s memoir-cum-novel, Cuppy and Stew, will haunt you long after you’ve closed the back cover. The story is based on the real-life 1955 crash of Flight 629, the first U.S. commercial aircraft downed by a bomb. The narrative is told by the smart, tough, (and funny) daughter of passengers on that plane. She leads us through an imagined and carefully constructed love story of her parents, then pulls us to the quaking aftermath of the crash. It’s her voice that stays with you. She reveals how quickly a life (in this case children’s lives) can go from security to nightmare. This is no melodramatic tragedy, however; it is a finely-tuned character study. Our narrator gives each of the family members equal light, but all three—the living and the dead--are shrouded in some mystery: the father’s Don Draper-like hidden past, the mother’s complicity in a fantasy life with a husband she adores, and the older sister’s sad fork in the road. The mood of the story—from fifties and sixties cultural nuance to lingering unanswered questions—make for a compelling read from beginning to end.

[Jeff Garrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

The narrator is Susan, the youngest daughter of Cuppy and Stew, who died in the crash of United 629 in 1955. She and her sister, Sherry, are orphaned and sent to Canada, where their parents are from, even though they were born in South Africa and were living in the United States. The book nicely divides in half, with the first part providing us the background of their parent’s steamy romance. This led their father accepting a position as a mining engineer in South Africa. Then came the Second World War. Stuck in South Africa, they had two kids. After the war, they move to the United States and are living near Chicago. With the father having been estranged from his family (I won’t give it away, you will have to read the book to learn why), the girls maternal grandmother stays with them while their parents travel by plane to the West Coast. They change planes in Denver, at which time their lives unknowingly intersect a disturbed young man who had stashed a dynamite bomb in his mother’s suitcase. The man then purchased insurance on his mother. The plane, which should have been high over the mountains when the dynamite exploded, had been delayed and was only ten minutes into the flight. Everyone died, but because the crash was over farmland, it was quickly discovered how the plane crashed and who had done the deed. The bomber’s pending execution hangs over the two girls.

After the crash, the girl’s adolescent years in Canada are horrible. They first live with the grandmother who has many problems of her own. Then there are other relatives and foster families and a boarding school. The girls face abuse-emotional, physical and sexual. Susan, the narrator, is able to escape (she goes to Northwestern for college), while Sherry is trapped and unable to escape the dysfunctional situation she and her sister found themselves in as younger girls. The book is both hopeful and sad. There are adults whom the reader will want to slap upside the head and ask why they have to be such a monster or so cruel. And there are others who do what they can to look out for the girls. Children should never be pawns. Sadly, however, too many are pawns in an impersonal world, as show in this story.

This is a very personal book for Goodman. While it is book of fiction, it is based on his wife’s and sister-in-law’s story. Their parents died on United 629. The book reads well and quickly. This is the second book I’ve read by Goodman. Two years ago, in preparation to taking a writing class from him at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, I read and reviewed his book, Days of Awe.

[Wendy Wong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two parts love story, one part messed-up adolescence. Well written, based on real people and real events, I read it in one sitting. I felt like I was peering beyond the bounds of privacy, yet could not look away. Told from the pov of the dead couple’s orphaned daughter, the story of Cuppy and Stew, their affair, and the happy family they built together comes to a sudden end when the couple’s plane is bombed and the plane is blown to pieces. In that moment the happy childhood of two girls is also ripped to pieces and the rest of their growing up years as orphans is unbearably sad and rife with mistreatment.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book that tells the fictional account of the romance of the narrator's and her sister's parents and of the girl's idyllic childhoods that changed abruptly with the bombing of United Flight 629 our Colorado that took the lives of their parents.
The second half of the book details the challenges the sisters face while shuffled among relatives and foster families and describes the narrator's strength and tenacity for determining the path of her future.

[Stephanie Faulkner-Peschke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent novel stemming from a true event that took place in 1955 that is little known to most of us. It is both heart wrenching and relatable as author Eric Goodman captures the voice of Susan, the young narrator, who along with her older sister Sherry, lost her parents on Flight 629. From a comfortable life to a world of neglect and everything in between, this author seamlessly evokes the female voice which makes for a rich and compelling read while paying homage to parents Cuppy and Stew and their unique love story.

[Judy Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read about two sisters and the dichotomy of their lives before and after losing their parents in a horrendous plane crash. The strength of loss and survival shines through in this historical fiction.