Aloft

Being a solo flyer made sense to Jerry Battle right from the start.

For his 56th birthday, his longtime (and recently ex-) girlfriend Rita Reyes had given him a gift certificate for flying lessons.

Once Jerry was up there he thought, 'here was the little space I was looking for, my private box seat in the world and completely outside of it too.' He immediately bought his beloved little Skyhawk 'ship', and literally painted an 'X' on the roof of his house so he could fly over the setting of his life - and consider it from above.

From a half-mile over the Earth, everything looked perfect to Jerry.

Everyone close to Jerry knew he'd been disappearing for years.

After the death of his Korean wife Daisy Han, it was Rita Reyes who rescued him and virtually brought up his two children.

Jerry alone was baffled when Rita stormed off, finding the title 'almost stepmother' somewhat feeble after two decades of devotion.For such a nice guy, Jerry could wreak an amazing amount of havoc.

Next in line for his roughshod ways was a female colleague named Kelly, who, to her regret, loved him too.

Life is about to deal Jerry Battle his toughest hand yet.

With his ailing father yearning to flee his 'Ivy Acres Life Care Centre' and his son teetering on bankruptcy, Jerry's daughter is about to bestow on him a father's worst nightmare.

The most perceptive, funny and elegant of writers, Chang-rae Lee creates a seductive character in Jerry Battle: an urbane, appealing, Italian-American patriarch of an ethnically jumbled clan, who, cruising aloft from his own emotional terrain, is tugged back to earth by the most compelling and unforgettable of family dramas.