A Novel
by Kate Folk
Cross the jet bridge with Linda, a frequent flyer with an unusual obsession, in this "razor-sharp and tender-hearted" (Lily Brooks-Dalton) debut novel by the acclaimed author of Out There.
Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges her true passion, taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant, because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could... .
Linda knows that she can't tell anyone she's sexually obsessed with planes. Nor can she reveal her belief that it's her destiny to "marry" one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, a catastrophic event that would unite her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she's always dreamed of.
Both subversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.
"This is the craziest, funniest book I've read in a while. And I read a lot of crazy, funny books. Get your boarding pass out and get ready for some turbulence. Sky Daddy is insane." —Gary Shteyngart, author of Our Country Friends
"Sky Daddy is outrageously funny and smartly unsettling, as if J. G. Ballard did a story arc for New Girl. It's an audacious comic novel about the love that really dare not say its name—also probably the worst (or ... best?) book to read on a plane." —Ed Park, author of Same Bed Different Dreams
"Hilarious, refreshing, and perverse, Sky Daddy is a soaring portrait of modern obsession, of knowing exactly what you want and trying to wrestle it from the jaws of our ridiculous world. Kate Folk's sharp sentences and sidesplitting characters sparkle with glorious cringe. Do not miss this flight." —Henry Hoke, author of Open Throat
This information about Sky Daddy was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kate Folk is the author of the short story collection Out There. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, and Zyzzyva. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she's also received support from the Headlands Center for the Arts, MacDowell, and Willapa Bay AiR. She lives in San Francisco.
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