Aloft

Maybe Mr. Lee talked to an Italian-American once. His underlying agenda seems to be -- these immigrants have it easy, they are assimilated. Well guess what? Italians dont assimilate. They certainly dont change their names, like the lead character here -- they have too much ethnic pride, and in a place like the New York metropolitan area, where there are millions of Italians, there is no need. That is just one glaring example of Mr. Lees inability to understand ethnic groups other than his own.

Mr. Lee, who spent most of his adult life in creative writing programs, could have done a little research into the landscaping and contracting businesses that were supposed to have been the protagonists life work. He presents them as a walk in the park, something the narrator inherited after his own father established them. Well, anyone can tell you that owning and running such a business is and always has been absolute hell. There is no reflection of the reality of work life here.

There is not one spark of storytelling magic. He hits all the diversity notes in an unrealistic and groaningly PC way -- Korean dead wife, Puerto Rican girlfriend -- without contextualizing these cross-ethnic experiences in a way appropriate to a sixty-year old man.

Because of all these misfires, I could not believe the narrator, or a single line of the book. The suburban scene he describes in laundry-list yawning detail has been done before and better by many other writers -- theres nothing new here.

The universal kudos heaped on this book just seems to be a reflection of the "minority mafia" dominating so-called literary fiction. No one has the guts to say that the critics darling of yesterday, writing his own ethic groups story, is incapable of writing convincingly outside of his own experience. It is a case of the emperors new clothes -- no one has the guts to say that this writer is lame.

While loosely plotted, the narrative chooses instead to focus primarily on the relationship that Jerry has with his children, their partners, and also with his aging father who is living rather dejectedly in an upscale nursing home. But while having lived the "American dream" Jerry has "an unnerving sense of being dangerously unmoored." He has a feeling of being "aloft" and detached from life and relationships, where he can hardly understand anybody anymore and that among the only real things left to him in this life is a shared condition of bemusement and sorrowful wonder.

His children, equally bemused by his detachment, have their own problems to deal with. Jack, who has started to drink heavily, is running the family landscaping business into the ground, while his wife Eunice, seems far too preoccupied with their over adorned and embellished house, which they dont quite have enough money for. His daughter, Theresa - who is the most fully realized character - finds out that she is both pregnant and sick with cancer. She refuses to have an abortion, when it is clear that her own life will be endangered.

The book does captivate certainly, but more important, the book admirably sees the world as it really is, and in many respects, it is unsurpassed as a story of a modern American man traveling through a morally ambivalent universe. Jerrys thoughts on contemporary life are indeed idiosyncratic and subjective and his ruminations are set against a vivid and colorful background of suburban life. Chang peppers the narrative with Jerrys thoughts on assisted living centers, modified American meal plans, organized Club Med-type activities, and the ultimate luxuries of "ease and convenience."

Midway through the book, however, Jerrys rambling and sprawling narrative becomes almost tiresome and tedious, and his constant verbose and pompous musings may somewhat test the readers patience. Although one may wonder where all this gesticulation might be leading, Aloft does present a very artful and evocative plea of a bourgeois family living a full life with all its joys and tragedies. Chang adroitly demonstrates just what a baffling, intractable, and multifaceted thing one persons life can be and that at some point you can try, and try but you cant avoid and "glide above the already anticipated turbulence" that may bring ones family the most harm. Mike Leonard May 04.

If youre not an airplane nerd, however, youll probably enjoy the book.