Unlearning To Fly

Synopsis

unlearning To Fly Is The Memoir Of A Bookworm Growing Up In Alaska—among People Whose Resilience, Restlessness, And Energy Find Their Highest Expression In Winter Ascents Up Mount Mckinley Or First Descents Down Wild Rivers. These Are The Flying Stories Of A Fearful Pilot Who Admires But Does Not Emulate The More Daring Exploits Of Her Father And Friends.

the Accounts Of Jennifer Brice—at Times Poignant, Funny, And Downright Nerve-racking—are Engaging Recollections Of Deadly, Near-deadly, And Occasionally Comic Encounters Between Human Nature And Nature Writ Large. The Unlikely Romance Between Her Parents, The Good Friday Earthquake, The Alaska Oil Boom, A Stint As A Newspaper Reporter, And The Trials Of A Student Pilot Form Engaging Chapters In Brice’s Remarkable Life. These Are The Stories In Which The Physics And Metaphors Of Flight—center Of Gravity, Angle Of Attack, Wake Turbulence—illuminate Brice’s Remarkable Life Story, Recounted In Prose That Takes Wing.

los Angeles Times Book Review

unlearning To Fly, A Memoir In Essays, Doesn't Order Brice's Memories So Much As Allow Forces Of Wind And Weather To Reveal Them. . . . The Reader Sees In Brice's Stories Her Family's Attempts At An Ordinary Life In Terrain That Would Just As Soon 'buck Us Off Its Back.'

— Marjorie Gellhorn Sa'adah, Los Angeles Times Book Review