Dear Edward A novel

Ann Napolitano

Book - 2020

"One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them are a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured veteran returning from Afghanistan, a business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor. Edward's story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a part of himself has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he make...s an unexpected discovery--one that will lead him to the answers of some of life's most profound questions: When you've lost everything, how do you find the strength to put one foot in front of the other? How do you learn to feel safe again? How do you find meaning in your life? Dear Edward is at once a transcendent coming-of-age story, a multidimensional portrait of an unforgettable cast of characters, and a breathtaking illustration of all the ways a broken heart learns to love again." --

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Subjects
Genres
Bildungsromans
Published
New York : Dial Press [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
Ann Napolitano (author)
Edition
First Edition
Physical Description
340 pages ; 25 cm
ISBN
9781984854780
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Twelve-year-old Eddie Adler is flying with his family from New York City to Los Angeles, a temporary relocation for his mother's television writing job. As he and his brother fight over who gets the window seat, their parents worry how the boys will cope with the move. The 216 passengers aboard their plane include a soldier returning from Afghanistan, an unexpectedly pregnant woman hoping for an engagement ring from her new boyfriend, and a dying tycoon. When the plane crashes in Colorado, Eddie is the sole survivor. Napolitano's (A Good Hard Look, 2011) latest follows Eddie in his struggle to build a new life without his family. Now living with his aunt and uncle, Eddie (now calling himself Edward) develops a relationship with Shay, his next door neighbor. Their relationship becomes the deep and stabilizing force in Edward's new life, and together they discover a cache of letters hidden in his uncle's garage that ultimately gives Edward's life new meaning. With its expert pacing and picture-perfect final page, Dear Edward is a wondrous read. It is a skillful and satisfying examination of not only what it means to survive, but of what it means to truly live.--Carol Gladstein Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Napolitano (A Good Hard Look) builds a gentle but persistent tension as she navigates the minds of passengers on a plane that is about to crash, and the thoughts of the boy who is the only survivor. Wonderfully detailed characters include Edward Adler, 12 years old at the time of the crash, who lives through the catastrophe, and Shay, who's the same age and lives next to the aunt and uncle who take over for Edward's dead parents. The story moves back and forth before and after the crash, when Edward struggles to physically and emotionally recover. Stories of his fellow passengers are woven throughout: Florida is a Filipina who remembers her past lives; Benjamin is a soldier who has just discovered he's gay; and Veronica is an alluring flight attendant who tallies admiring stares. During Edward's recovery between 2013 and 2019, he remembers some of these people, but in 2016, after finding hundreds of letters addressed to him from the families of the victims, Edward begins to discover his purpose. The potent prose brings readers close to the complex emotional and psychological fallout after tragedy. Edward's intolerable losses and his eventual brave recovery is at first melancholy, but by the end, readers will feel a comforting sense of solace. Napolitano's depiction of the nuances of post-trauma experiences is fearless, compassionate, and insightful. Agent: Julie Barer, the Book Group. (Jan.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Imagine the pain of losing a single family member. Now, imagine getting on a plane with your entire family, both parents and an older brother, and when the plane crashes, you are the only passenger to survive. Such is the fate of 12-year-old Eddie Adler in this penetrating new novel from Napolitano (A Good Hard Look). Eddie awakens in the hospital with no immediate family, a huge social media presence as a celebrity survivor, an unshakable sense of hollowness, unsteady memories that can flare up painfully like a forest fire, and the need to understand who he is now, because in a tragedy like this, you don't just lose your future, you lose your past. He even effectively gets a new name; he becomes Edward when he goes to live with his aunt and uncle in New Jersey. Edward does go forward, in illuminating if unexpected ways. But what makes this narrative so effective is its alternating between the ordinary events unfolding on the flight and the aftermath of the crash, which keeps the sense of loss and the significance of what has happened fresh in readers' minds. VERDICT The painfully vivid story of one boy's coming of age redirected by tragedy.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A 12-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a plane crasha study in before and after.Edward Adler is moving to California with his adored older brother, Jordan, and their parents: Mom is a scriptwriter for television, Dad is a mathematician who is home schooling his sons. They will get no further than Colorado, where the plane goes down. Napolitano's (A Good Hard Look, 2011, etc.) novel twins the narrative of the flight from takeoff to impact with the story of Edward's life over the next six years. Taken in by his mother's sister and her husband, a childless couple in New Jersey, Edward's misery is constant and almost impermeable. Unable to bear sleeping in the never-used nursery his aunt and uncle have hastily appointed to serve as his bedroom, he ends up bunking next door, where there's a kid his age, a girl named Shay. This friendship becomes the single strand connecting him to the world of the living. Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, we meet all the doomed airplane passengers, explore their backstories, and learn about their hopes and plans, every single one of which is minutes from obliteration. For some readers, Napolitano's premise will be too dark to bear, underlining our terrible vulnerability to random events and our inability to protect ourselves or our children from the worst-case scenario while also imagining in exhaustive detail the bleak experience of survival. The people around Edward have no idea how to deal with him; his aunt and uncle try their best to protect him from the horrors of his instant celebrity as Miracle Boy. As one might expect, there is a ray of light for Edward at the end of the tunnel, and for hardier readers this will make Napolitano's novel a story of hope.Well-written and insightful but so heartbreaking that it raises the question of what a reader is looking for in fiction. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

June 12, 2013 7:45 a.m. Newark Airport is shiny from a recent renovation. There are potted plants at each joint of the security line, to keep passengers from realizing how long they'll have to wait. People prop themselves against walls or sit on suitcases. They all woke up before dawn; they exhale loudly, sputtering with exhaustion. When the Adler family reaches the front of the line, they load their computers and shoes into trays. Bruce Adler removes his belt, rolls it up, and slots it neatly beside his brown loafers in a gray plastic bin. His sons are messier, throwing sneakers on top of laptops and wallets. Laces hang over the side of their shared tray, and Bruce can't stop himself from tucking the loose strands inside. The large rectangular sign beside them reads: All wallets, keys, phones, jewelry, electronic devices, computers, tablets, metal objects, shoes, belts, and food must go into the security bins. All drink and contraband must be thrown away. Bruce and Jane Adler flank their twelve-­year-­old son, Eddie, as they approach the screening machine. Their fifteen-­year-­old son, Jordan, hangs back until his family has gone through. Jordan says to the officer manning the machine: "I want to opt out." The officer gives him a look. "What'd you say?" The boy shoves his hands in his pockets and says, "I want to opt out of going through the machine." The officer yells, apparently to the room at large: "We've got a male O-­P-­T!" "Jordan," his father says, from the far side of the tunnel. "What are you doing?" The boy shrugs. "This is a full-­body backscatter, Dad. It's the most dangerous and least effective screening machine on the market. I've read about it and I'm not going through it." Bruce, who is ten yards away and knows he won't be allowed to go back through the scanner to join his son, shuts his mouth. He doesn't want Jordan to say another word. "Step to the side, kid," the officer says. "You're holding up traffic." After the boy has complied, the officer says, "Let me tell you, it's a whole lot easier and more pleasant to go through this machine than to have that guy over there pat you down. Those pat­downs are thorough, if you know what I mean." The boy pushes hair off his forehead. He's grown six inches in the last year and is whippet thin. Like his mother and brother, he has curly hair that grows so quickly he can't keep it in check. His father's hair is short and white. The white arrived when Bruce was twenty-­seven, the same year Jordan was born. Bruce likes to point at his head and say to his son, Look what you did to me. The boy is aware that his father is staring intently at him now, as if trying to deliver good sense through the air. Jordan says, "There are four reasons I'm not going through this machine. Would you like to hear them?" The security officer looks amused. He's not the only one paying attention to the boy now; the passengers around him are all listening. "Oh God," Bruce says, under his breath. Eddie Adler slips his hand into his mother's, for the first time in at least a year. Watching his parents pack for this move from New York to Los Angeles--­the Grand Upheaval, his father called it--­gave him an upset stomach. He feels his insides grumble now and wonders if there's a bathroom nearby. He says, "We should have stayed with him." "He'll be okay," Jane says, as much to herself as to her son. Her husband's gaze is fixed on Jordan, but she can't bear to look. Instead, she focuses on the tactile pleasure of her child's hand in hers. She has missed this. So much could be solved, she thinks, if we simply held hands with each other more often. The officer puffs out his chest. "Hit me, kid." Jordan raises his fingers, ready to count. "One, I prefer to limit my exposure to radiation. Two, I don't believe this technology prevents terrorism. Three, I'm grossed out that the government wants to take pictures of my balls. And four"--­he takes a breath--­"I think the pose the person is forced to take inside the machine--­hands up, like they're being mugged--­is designed to make them feel powerless and degraded." The TSA agent is no longer smiling. He glances around. He's not sure if this boy is making a fool of him. Crispin Cox is in a wheelchair parked nearby, waiting for security to swab his chair for explosives. The old man has been stewing about this. Swab his wheelchair for explosives! If he had any spare breath in his lungs at all, he would refuse. Who do these idiots think they are? Who do they think he is? Isn't it bad enough that he has to sit in this chair and travel with a nurse? He growls, "Give the boy his goddamn pat-­down." The old man has been issuing demands for decades and is almost never disobeyed. The tenor of his voice breaks the agent's indecision like a black belt's hand through a board. He points Jordan toward another officer, who tells him to spread his legs and stick out his arms. His family watches in dismay as the man moves his hand roughly between the boy's legs. "How old are you?" the officer asks, when he pauses to readjust his rubber gloves. "Fifteen." He makes a sour face. "Hardly ever get kids doing this." "Who do you get?" "Hippies, mostly." He thinks for a moment. "Or people who used to be hippies." Jordan has to force his body to be still. The agent is feeling along the waistline of his jeans, and it tickles. "Maybe I'll be a hippie when I grow up." "I'm finished, fifteen," the man says. "Get out of here." Jordan is smiling when he rejoins his family. He takes his sneakers from his brother. "Let's get going," Jordan says. "We don't want to miss our flight." "We'll talk about that later," Bruce says. The two boys lead the way down the hall. There are windows in this corridor, and the skyscrapers of New York City are visible in the distance--­man-­made mountains of steel and glass piercing a blue sky. Jane and Bruce can't help but locate the spot where the Twin Towers used to be, the same way the tongue finds the hole where a tooth was pulled. Their sons, who were both toddlers when the towers fell, accept the skyline as it is. "Eddie," Jordan says, and the two boys exchange a look. The brothers are able to read each other effortlessly; their parents are often mystified to find that Jordan and Eddie have conducted an entire conversation and come to a decision without words. They've always operated as a unit and done everything together. In the last year, though, Jordan has been pulling away. The way he says his brother's name now means: I'm still here. I'll always come back. Eddie punches his brother in the arm and runs ahead. Jane walks gingerly. The hand dropped by her younger son tingles at her side. At the gate, there is more waiting to do. Linda Stollen, a young woman dressed all in white, hurries into a pharmacy. Her palms are sweaty, and her heart thumps like it's hoping to find a way out. Her flight from Chicago arrived at midnight, and she'd spent the intervening hours on a bench, trying to doze upright, her purse cradled to her chest. She'd booked the cheapest flight possible--hence the detour to Newark--­and informed her father on the way to the airport that she would never ask him for money again. He had guffawed, even slapped his knee, like she'd just told the funniest joke he'd ever heard. She was serious, though. At this moment, she knows two things: One, she will never return to Indiana, and two, she will never ask her father and his third wife for anything, ever again. This is Linda's second pharmacy visit in twenty-­four hours. She reaches into her purse and touches the wrapper of the pregnancy test she bought in South Bend. This time, she chooses a celebrity magazine, a bag of chocolate candies, and a diet soda and carries them to the cashier. Crispin Cox snores in his wheelchair, his body a gaunt origami of skin and bones. Occasionally, his fingers flutter, like small birds struggling to take flight. His nurse, a middle-­aged woman with bushy eyebrows, files her fingernails in a seat nearby. Jane and Bruce sit side by side in blue airport chairs and argue, although no one around them would suspect it. Their faces are unflustered, their voices low. Their sons call this style of parental fight "DEFCON 4," and it doesn't worry them. Their parents are sparring, but it's more about communication than combat. They are reaching out, not striking. Bruce says, "That was a dangerous situation." Jane shakes her head slightly. "Jordan is a kid. They wouldn't have done anything to him. He was within his rights." "You're being naïve. He was mouthing off, and this country doesn't take kindly to that, regardless of what the Constitution claims." "You taught him to speak up." Excerpted from Dear Edward: A Novel by Ann Napolitano All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.