Review by New York Times Review
THERE'S a line by the poet Robert Hass that might serve as an epigraph to the Irish writer Emma Donoghue's engaging new novel: "Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances." In "Landing," she explores with a light, sure touch the subject of desire across distances of various kinds: generational, cultural, even spiritual. Geography, however, is the most crucial difficulty plaguing Donoghue's lovers. Sile O'Shaughnessy, 39, is a stylish, seasoned flight attendant living in Dublin; Jude Turner, 25, is a hardworking historian at a museum in tiny Ireland, Ontario. They meet when Jude embarks on her first plane trip - to England, where her mother has taken ill. The passenger next to Jude expires en route, an omen that works two ways: prefiguring Jude's mother's death, which will leave her alone in the house they shared, and signaling a connection between her and Sile, who's working that flight. One of the many appealing aspects of Donoghue's account of the long-distance relationship that takes shape between Sile and Jude is that neither is looking for a major upheaval. Confident in their work and comfortable in their own communities, neither wants to live in the displaced realm of e-mail, long-distance phone calls and virtual good-night kisses. Both are at home, certainly, with verbal expression - Sile is a chatterbox, in love with the "gizmo" that allows her to text-message and e-mail her friends, while Jude, initially a Luddite, takes to sharing her historical discoveries in long, jaunty e-mail messages - but they long for physical contact. "Out of sight, not out of mind, Sile told herself at solitary moments. This was like prayer, she supposed: talking in your head, keeping faith with the invisible." Not least among the obstacles between Sile and Jude is Kathleen, Sile's partner of five years. But other differences include age, financial status and style - the half-Indian Sile is a pumps-wearing femme, Jude a motorbike-riding butch - as well as religion. (Jude, a Quaker, takes the agnostic Sile's ribbing with surprising good humor.) The biggest problem, however, is posed by the commitment each woman has to her own geography. Jude is a loyal Canadian ("mock all you like, but our inventions include basketball, insulin, the gas mask, ketchup and international time zones") and Sile the sort of Dubliner who can't quite forgive a friend when he moves to the countryside. Donoghue clearly enjoys contrasting Sile's fast-paced urban life with Jude's rural cluster of neighbors and friends. Donoghue handles the complexities of the women's relationship with ease, transcribing their good-natured banter as they try to see if they have a future together. And there are moments amid the jokes and the (infrequent) steamy nights when the melancholy of separation is dispelled, giving a hint of what a new life might look like. "Why was it, Sile wondered, that emigration sounded noble and tragic, immigration grubby and grasping?" This is just one of the many questions that unfold in this entertaining journey into what Jude calls "the intersection of love and geography." Why, one character wonders, does emigration sound noble and 'immigration' sound grubby? Sylvia Brownrigg's most recent novel is "The Delivery Room."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
It's been said there are only two plots in the world of fiction: someone comes to town and someone goes on a trip. This slim novel combines both. On her first trip abroad, 25-year-old Jude meets older, sexy, stylish flight attendant Sile (pronounced Sheila). The daughter of an Indian mother and an Irish father, Sile is a world traveler determined to keep on the move. Jude is a historian, attached to her small Canadian town and an old-fashioned way of life. The two strike up a flirtation, which eventually turns into a long-distance relationship. Although both characters are compelling, it is hard to see why they like each other. Sile and her friends are snobbish and condescending to Jude and her way of life. Jude is strongly attached to Rizla, her almost ex-husband. She refuses to see how her new relationship affects him, or how he affects her new relationship. Despite its lesbian protagonists, and twenty-first-century trappings of e-mail, global travel, and cell phones, this remains an old-fashioned love story about compromise and growth. --Marta Segal Block Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In her affecting fifth novel, Donoghue (Slammerkin) explores the idea that true love can conquer all. Jude Turner is a 25-year-old androgynous Luddite who's rooted to her small Canadian town of Ireland. She's also uneasy about flying, but forces herself to board a plane when she hears that her mother, visiting family in the U.K., may be ill. On the plane she meets the older, feminine, worldly SIle O'Shaughnessy, a flight attendant who lives in the other Ireland. After exchanging contact info, the duo part and find themselves thinking of one another and writing to each other as they lead their respective lives: Jude as the curator of a tiny museum who has the occasional dalliance with her former love, Rizla; SIle in bustling Dublin, entrenched in a complacent relationship with her longtime partner, Kathleen. Jude and SIle fall in love over the course of their correspondence and try to make their relationship work despite the distance between them, nay-saying friends, jealous exes and their own nagging doubts. That Jude and SIle are so vividly opposite is the slightest bit precious, but Donoghue mitigates the boilerplate aspects of this love story with an abiding compassion for her characters. There's a lot to like here, but nothing to really love. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
The life of Jude Turner, a museum curator working in a tiny Ontario town, is well ordered but not very eventful. On an emergency trip to London, where her mother has taken ill while on vacation, Jude meets worldly Irish flight attendant S!le when the two are brought together via an odd midair mishap. Over time, they get to know each other through letters and email and begin a somewhat tenuous relationship complicated by existing relationships as well as the geographical distance between them. Irish writer and historian Donoghue (Slammerkin) excels at getting to the heart of her two main characters; the best parts of the novel involve the correspondence between the two women as their relationship deepens. Though the ending is somewhat predictable, the story succeeds as a light romance. Recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/07.]-Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Lesbian romance goes mainstream in this charming tale by Donoghue (Touchy Subjects, 2006, etc.) of a cosmopolitan Irish flight attendant and her down-home Canadian girlfriend struggling to find common ground for their newfound love. You might call it "meeting cute" when Jude Turner, mildly butch curator of a rural Ontario museum, locks eyes in flight with well-groomed, expensively perfumed and bejeweled beauty S"le O'Shaughnessy, except that they're staring at each other because the fellow passenger slumped on Jude's shoulder is clearly dead. Despite the grim introduction and other unpromising circumstances--S"le has a steady girlfriend; Jude's en route to London to collect her ailing mother--the two women definitely feel a spark, and soon they're e-mailing each other several times a day. Their epistolary flirtation is nervous and sexy and funny in the best romantic-comedy tradition; Donoghue's unspoken point is that a gay love affair is just like any other. Boring old Kathleen (the steady girlfriend) isn't the obstacle, nor is the fact that pushing-40 S"le is 14 years older than Jude. Instead, as the author vividly sketches their separate lives, we see that the real problem is each woman's passionate attachment to her home turf: bustling, booming Dublin, where S"le touches down to gossip and reminisce with friends as urbane and fidgety as she; and the tiny town of Ireland, Ontario, where Jude was born, knows everyone and still occasionally sleeps with her not-yet-ex-husband. This is fairly standard stuff, not nearly as challenging or thematically deep as Donoghue's historical novels Slammerkin (2001) and Life Mask (2004). But it rises above the commonplace with its razor-sharp prose, full-bodied portraits of all the secondary characters and shrewd observations about everything from social change in Ireland to the politics of museum funding. The two protagonists are believable, lovable women whose hesitations are understandable and whose happy ending seems more than deserved. Not one of this talented author's most ambitious works, but warmhearted, readable and entertaining. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
