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Overview
A delightful, old-fashioned love story with a uniquely twenty-first-century twist, Landing is a romantic comedy that explores the pleasures and sorrows of long-distance relationships--the kind millions of us now maintain mostly by plane, phone, and Internet.Síle is a stylish citizen of the new Dublin, a veteran flight attendant who’s traveled the world. Jude is a twenty-five-year-old archivist, stubbornly attached to the tiny town of Ireland, Ontario, in which she was born and raised. On her first plane trip, Jude’s and Síle’s worlds touch and snag at Heathrow Airport. In the course of the next year, their lives, and those of their friends and families, will be drawn into a new, shaky orbit.
This sparkling, lively story explores age-old questions: Does where you live matter more than who you live with? What would you give up for love, and would you be a fool to do so?
Synopsis
LANDING is an old-fashioned love story set in the early twenty-first century, a dark comedy about the peculiar pleasures and sorrows of keeping up long-distance relationships by plane, phone and Internet. Síle (pronounced like Sheila), an Irishwoman with an Indian mother, is a stylish citizen of the new (expensive, stressful, pomo) Dublin. A veteran flight attendant at 40, she is getting itchy in her career as much as in her domestic life. Jude, a 25-year-old archivist, stubbornly attached to the tiny town of Ireland, Ontario, has never been on a plane before. Two worlds touch and snag at Heathrow Airport on New Year’s Day, and over the course of a year, Jude’s and Síle’s lives, and those of their friends and families, will be drawn into a new, shaky orbit. The local collides with the eclectic, the historical with the global. LANDING is an allusive, sparkling, dialogue-based story about some of the biggest questions: Which things about you make you you? Does where you live matter more than who you live with? What would you give up for love, and would you be an idiot to?
Since the lovers are both women, it could be called a lesbian novel, but a post-closet one, which addresses its insights and jokes to the widest readership.
The New York Times - Sylvia Brownrigg
There's a line by the poet Robert Hass that might serve as an epigraph to the Irish writer Emma Donoghue's engaging new novel: "Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances." In Landing, she explores with a light, sure touch the subject of desire across distances of various kinds: generational, cultural, even spiritual—Donoghue handles the complexities of the women's relationship with ease, transcribing their good-natured banter as they try to see if they have a future together. And there are moments amid the jokes and the (infrequent) steamy nights when the melancholy of separation is dispelled, giving a hint of what a new life might look like. "Why was it, Sile wondered, that emigration sounded noble and tragic, immigration grubby and grasping?" This is just one of the many questions that unfold in this entertaining journey into what Jude calls 'the intersection of love and geography."
Editorials
Sylvia Brownrigg
There's a line by the poet Robert Hass that might serve as an epigraph to the Irish writer Emma Donoghue's engaging new novel: "Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances." In Landing, she explores with a light, sure touch the subject of desire across distances of various kinds: generational, cultural, even spiritual—Donoghue handles the complexities of the women's relationship with ease, transcribing their good-natured banter as they try to see if they have a future together. And there are moments amid the jokes and the (infrequent) steamy nights when the melancholy of separation is dispelled, giving a hint of what a new life might look like. "Why was it, Sile wondered, that emigration sounded noble and tragic, immigration grubby and grasping?" This is just one of the many questions that unfold in this entertaining journey into what Jude calls 'the intersection of love and geography."—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
In her affecting fifth novel, Donoghue (Slammerkin) explores the idea that true love can conquer all. Jude Turner is a 25-year-old androgynous Luddite who's rooted to her small Canadian town of Ireland. She's also uneasy about flying, but forces herself to board a plane when she hears that her mother, visiting family in the U.K., may be ill. On the plane she meets the older, feminine, worldly Síle O'Shaughnessy, a flight attendant who lives in the other Ireland. After exchanging contact info, the duo part and find themselves thinking of one another and writing to each other as they lead their respective lives: Jude as the curator of a tiny museum who has the occasional dalliance with her former love, Rizla; Síle in bustling Dublin, entrenched in a complacent relationship with her longtime partner, Kathleen. Jude and Síle fall in love over the course of their correspondence and try to make their relationship work despite the distance between them, nay-saying friends, jealous exes and their own nagging doubts. That Jude and Síle are so vividly opposite is the slightest bit precious, but Donoghue mitigates the boilerplate aspects of this love story with an abiding compassion for her characters. There's a lot to like here, but nothing to really love. (May)
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
"Nervous and sexy and funny in the best romantic-comedy tradition...warmhearted, readable and entertaining."Library Journal
The life of Jude Turner, a museum curator working in a tiny Ontario town, is well ordered but not very eventful. On an emergency trip to London, where her mother has taken ill while on vacation, Jude meets worldly Irish flight attendant Síle when the two are brought together via an odd midair mishap. Over time, they get to know each other through letters and email and begin a somewhat tenuous relationship complicated by existing relationships as well as the geographical distance between them. Irish writer and historian Donoghue (Slammerkin) excels at getting to the heart of her two main characters; the best parts of the novel involve the correspondence between the two women as their relationship deepens. Though the ending is somewhat predictable, the story succeeds as a light romance. Recommended for all public libraries.
—Caroline Mann