A plane crash. 191 dead. 1 survivor – a twelve year old boy called Edward. We review the gripping Dear Edward.
Dear Edward – the blurb
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 makes 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.
Compulsive reading
The concept, a plane crash with one survivor immediately captured me. There is something morbidly fascinating about a plane crash. Passengers don’t usually survive. Napolitano latches on to this fascination showing how both the public at large and how Edward himself deal with his survival and it makes compulsive reading.
In a room
I was immediately reminded of the very good Room by Emma Donoghue. Whilst the subject matters are not the same – there is NO imprisonment/abuse/rape at all in this book. Edward is nevertheless very similar to Jack who both find themselves having to deal with some very complex emotions in a very altered world. In walk the unfamiliar aunt and uncle who have some issues themselves. For a start they promptly plonk Edward into the pink nursery of the unborn child they couldn’t produce. Yet his aunt and uncle rise to the task and we follow Edward through his formative years as he learns to eat, heal, survive.
Fateful moment
I had thought that once we met Edward on the other side as it were, the plane crash referred to but not detailed would be no longer a part of the story. Yet here Napolitano also shined by introducing flashbacks. Snippets of the characters on the plane, their lives, their final living moments were slowly revealed. I was gripped as I read, searching for sudden jolts, explosions or freak weather. Was it an engine failure? Had the plane been hijacked? I followed and became more drawn in to these people’s lives as the time ticked down to their deaths. It was morbid, yet totally riveting.
Brotherly love
Dear Edward is a strong piece of work. It made waves in the USA (being picked by daughter of ex president George W Bush as a book club pick). Whilst the plane crash and its victims overshadowed Edward at times it is Edward who delivered the heartbreak and the hope. I also loved reading about Edward’s relationhsip with his brother. It was touching and a subject not often covered in fiction. It’s available in hardback at all good bookshops NOW.