Landing

Life is about to change for Jude Turner in Emma Donoghue's novel, Landing. The 25 year old archivist/curator of a one-room schoolhouse museum in her very small town of Ireland, Ontario, Canada, is "celebrating" New Years Eve by flying to the United Kingdom to see her mother, who has been visiting her sister, Jude's aunt. This mysterious request from Jude's aunt heralds illness and loss for Jude. Thus for the first time Jude, the self-proclaimed Luddite, is on a plane. It will be one of many firsts as an unusual incident during the flight prompts her meeting Síle O'Shaughnessy, a meeting that will have long term effects on both women. Síle is a 39-year-old flight attendant of Indo-Celtic heritage with nearly 20 years of experience in her career. A resident of Dublin, Ireland, Síle is a cosmopolitan, high-tech, and high energy lesbian whose fast-paced vagabond life suits her. She was born, after all, at 40,000 feet. For more of this review, please check my website. Thanks! MJ

Having read Donoghue's other work did not really prepare me for how much I would like this contemporary novel. Donoghue is one of a very few novelists who writes about lesbians and their lives in an intelligent and literate way. This book is light, and smart and very well written. It perfectly creates the longing and uncertainty involved in starting a new relationship when everything is up for grabs. Donoghue can do it all. Reading Landing makes me look forward to whatever else comes next I loved it.

As much as I thoroughly enjoyed Emma Donoghue's historical novels Slammerkin and Life Mask, I'll confess to a longing for her to turn her extraordinary novelist's eye to a contemporary topic. Landing fulfills that wish and a great deal more. This is a story that could only take place in the time of easy international travel, email, and long-distance telephone. And yet, the long-distance relationship that Donoghue explores is all the more painful because of these aids to long-distance communication. It seems as if they are always in touch, but touch, physical, sensual, tactile, is just what is missing despite the connections offered by phone and email. Sile and Jude are wonderful characters, vibrant, funny, touching, and imperfect in complementary ways. Their effort to connect, to make hard choices, to love one another despite the distance (Jude is in Ontario, Canada, Sile in Dublin and the Atlantic Ocean is far more than a pond), despite their very different ways of seeing and being in the world, is the stuff of a great story, and Donoghue is a great storyteller. I recommend Landing highly. It is a splendid novel that will make you think about your own life and your own choices in a completely new way.

I've always been partial to Emma Donoghue's novel Hood but I must admit that Landing has edged Hood out of top spot. I don't know that I've ever read a more eloquent, realistic, humorous, empathetic or insightful romance. Donoghue is brillant in her lyrical portrayal of long-distance romance and its trials and tendencies.

I was immediately hooked into this story about an "against-all-odds" love relationship. At the center of the story are two heroines, each likeable in her own way, who exemplify the saying that "opposites attract." Jude Turner is a young museum curator who has always lived a simple life in a village (population: 600) in Canada. She has no desire for a cell phone, credit card, or even an alarm clock. She doesn't use e-mail and is fearful of air travel. When Jude must fly to London, she encounters the cosmopolitan Sile O'Shaughnessy, an attractive flight attendant who resides in Dublin. Sile's constant companion is her "gizmo" that she uses to check her stocks and text-message her friends. As their attraction for each other grows, they face the obstacles of their different lifestyles, doubting friends, and the thousands of miles that separate them. This story is, by turns, funny, sad, sensual, and joyous, as Jude and Sile attempt to find common ground in more ways than one.