This family drama centers on 3 siblings and their first holiday together after the family matriarch has passed. In question: the familial home and who will get it.

I LOVE a good family drama but there are so many characters (siblings + spouses + kids + a tangentially related other family) and the character development to differentiate between characters is really minuscule (and they don’t seem unique), so it’s hard to differentiate and I felt so lost it was frustrating.

Disappointed I didn’t love and it had great potential. Maybe a family tree could have helped?

Thanks to Mariner Books and Netgalley for the ARC.

I read alot of hype about this book and I kept reading till the end but after I finished I thought, Eh? Written well but felt the story was weak. Thanks for the advance preview.

Writing: 4/5 Plot: 3.5/5 Characters: 4.5/5

A family drama focussed on three siblings and their families on the first Christmas after their mother’s death. Each is experiencing some disappointment / pressure in life and each twirls within their own constant inner monologue while engaging with each other in a kind of complex dance with needs, desires, and irritations constantly up for rebalancing. Martin, the eldest, is on temporary leave after having made some ill-advised statements to the wrong people at his educational institution; his wife Tess is the practical one, a lawyer who is in a constant state of worry and irritation; Kate is a housewife and mother, married to Josh who has managed to run through the inheritance they were living on; Henry is an artist obsessed with the climate, and his wife Alice somehow shifted from artist to social worker and now finds herself over-attached to one of her charges. When that particular charge disappears on Christmas Eve, each individual gets a jolt that drives him or her to a deeper understanding of his or her own life.

While slow at times, the book contains a lot of insight through each person’s reflections coming from a wide variety of backgrounds and situations. An enjoyable read.

In Lynn Steger Strong’s taut domestic drama Flight (Mariner, $27.99, 9780063135147), Christmas is a time of tension and healing for three adult siblings in the wake of their mother’s death.

Helen was a formidable figure by all accounts. Equal parts homemaker, matriarch, and intellectual, she stood out in their Florida town and provided the charismatic fulcrum around which family life pivoted. Even after her children had long left the family home behind, she wielded strong influence. In their first holiday after her death, Helen’s fractious family has gathered at the large house son Henry shares with his wife, and they’re flailing.

For a start, Helen died suddenly, and without a will and now they’re fighting over the house.
But money and property are only the start of their issues. No one is at ease in Helen’s absence; everyone is worried and hiding some perceived shortcoming. The youngest sibling, Kate, a stay-at-home mom of three, chose a similar path to Helen, but entirely lacks her confidence. The jury is still out on her husband Josh, who’s dedicated his time this holiday to the seemingly sisyphean task of building an igloo for the kids to play in. With money trouble looming, Kate’s focus is firmly trained on the big favor she wants to ask of her brothers. Elder brother Martin is a professor worried about job stability in the wake of some unbecoming and potentially ruinous behavior. His wife Tess is a well-paid and perennially anxious lawyer, who is neither confident being with her kids nor comfortable when they’re out of her sight. Though she’s judgmental with Kate, even Tess was in thrall to Helen’s charms.

Middle child Henry is a dedicated artist who does interesting work to document climate change, which no one else inside (or perhaps even outside of) the family understands or much values. Henry’s wife Alice, a beautiful, multiracial artist turned social worker from a well-to do family, and the host of this gathering at the house in Upstate New York that she inherited from her grandmother, is still grieving her own maternal prospects after multiple miscarriages. Alice dreads being left alone with any of her in-laws.

As a reader, it’s easy to relate to Alice’s trepidation. Though every sibling and spouse is nuanced and multidimensional, even on paper, being in the presence of Helen’s clan can seem overwhelming. At the same time, the myriad fissures and fractures and worry are what makes this family drama feel real. A significant side plot involving one of Alice’s more troubled clients provides a key rallying point for Helen’s family and much-needed breathing room.

Flight
by Lynn Steger Strong
Pub Date: November 8, 2022
Mariner Books

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. With the urgency and artfulness that cemented her previous novel Want as "a defining novel of our age" (Vulture), Strong once again turns her attention to the structural and systemic failings that are haunting Americans, but also to the ways in which family, friends, and strangers can support each other through the gaps. Flight is a novel of family, ambition, precarity, art, and desire, one that forms a powerful next step from a brilliant chronicler of our time.

This book is perfect for those that love reading about families dealing with grief and processing it together.
3 stars

This book is perfect for those that love reading about families dealing with grief and processing it together. The author did a beautiful job and I will be recommending it to others.

This family drama is about adult siblings & their families gathering for the 1st Christmas since their mother’s death. I wanted so much more from it. I feel sad that it didn’t seem to meet its potential…the premise showed so much promise, I was anticipating Claire Lombardo vibes, and it just fell short. I needed much more backstory on each of the characters…a chapter on each of the siblings & their spouses would have made the entire thing so much clearer. This book needed another 200 pages and could have been incredible. 3.5 stars rounded down because I had so much hope for it!

For every book there is a reader. This was not the book for this reader.

Mother has died. The matriarch of the family is gone. The one who brought them all together, worked out their difficulties, taught them to share is no more. These three adult children became unable to cope, to talk with their siblings, to strive to understand one another. Coming together for the first Christmas without Mom becomes an exercise in dodging land mines. Three siblings, three spouses, assorted children who are overprotected, dependent, bratty - this reader had difficulty figuring out who was who and what their particular issue was. Too many backstories combined with the infighting that was going on, made for an unpleasant read. Then there was a subplot which added more names and more backstories. For a fairly short book, each page was packed with unpleasantness. Maybe they should have all stayed home this holiday!

I usually enjoy family stories but this one was a slog. I did finish the book.

This was a book I read in one day. The characters were so well-defined as the author depicted the lives, ambitions and disappointments in contemporary families. I found it interesting that when they saw another family desperately in need, they saw beyond their selves to help. Families are messy but often they are all we have.

This was such a great read. I love a long rollicking expansive family novel and Flight fits the bill. It's the winter holidays and three siblings and their spouses have gathered to celebrate. They are taking up the mantle held by their recently passed matriarch thus the holidays bring a whole new slew of roaring emotions.

There are adults without jobs, adults who hate their jobs, adults who would love to work more and happily staying home moms. It's actually filled with characters and I think it could have used another 50-100 pages to etch out the personalities of some of the less important siblings/spouses. Even so, I love the adventure of it and the added suspense regarding what should be done with the matriarch's home.

I could easily sit down and lose myself in a sequel, I loved this so much. But it's not that kind of book. Steger Strong invites you into the lives of this family for a short period of time to potentially pass judgement. It's not long before you see yourself in each and every one of the characters. If you love contemporary novels, family holiday disasters or just would enjoy a superbly written novel, Flight is for you!
#marinerbooks #netgalley #LynnStegerStrong #Flight

As always, Lynn Steger Strong's writing is assured and elegant. Her character depictions are vivid and multi=layered.

However, I had two minor concerns. First, there are a lot of names thrown around, which means a lot to keep up with, and the early chapters feel a. bit choppy, like we don't settle in. Thankfully, this issue is certainly resolved as the narrative progresses.

Second, the overall storyline of a family coming together like this felt a bit tired, like I've read a few other similar novels and I wasn't sure what fresh perspective this one brought.

That being said, I'm glad I stuck with this one and I found it rewarding in the end. I think fans of Tessa Hadley and similar writers will really enjoy this one. I especially admired how the characters seem like real people.

What I loved most about this book was the honesty and description of each character. They were complicated, real, full of hopes and doubts like we all are. It felt like a Christmas with my own siblings, trying to fit into lives that have gotten bigger and remembering our own childhoods. The details of married life, children, work, and relationships between Kate, Josh, Alice, Martin, Helen and Henry ring so true, this book was a sweet surprise. For readers who enjoy a family drama or books similar to Little Fires Everywhere, this is one to check out.

Though mostly isolated to one location, FLIGHT in many ways felt like a sprawling humanist drama, with its large web of characters so realistically and beautifully rendered with all their 3D flaws. I thought, most of all, of Susan MInot---in terms of the tenderness and heartbreak, but also the scope of characters, and at a sentence level as well. This both felt like a departure from WANT, mostly in terms of theme, but felt like a kind of growth in Steger Strong as well? I loved it.

Thanks so much to the publisher for the e-galley!

I was lucky enough to win a digital ARC of FLIGHT by Lynn Steger Strong from a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Have a safe and happy summer, and thanks for the early look!

I really enjoyed this novel. Steger Strong is excellent at writing interpersonal and family dynamics, All of the family relationships felt extremely real and lived in, to the point that it was sometimes slightly stressful to read - but her ear for dialogue had me ripping right along.

This is the story of 3 siblings and their spouses and children, sharing a holiday after the death of their mother.

There were too many people, too many names and too many backstories for me. I found this book very difficult to wade through. I was often confused about who belonged to who. To add to this there is a subplot, adding more names and another backstory.

There were money problems and rivalries, shifting allegiances and children with issues. Altogether too much in one novel.

Though I generally enjoy this type of novel about a family gathering, this had too much family, all together over a short holiday.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

I'm never quite sure what to say when a book doesn't work for me.

Perhaps it was the writing style. The flow too stted to seem natural, or too stream-of-conscious to feel realistic.

Maybe it was too character centric without enough plot, or that the plot took too long to develop into something like a climax.

Probably this book just didn't match my current taste or expectations. That happens sometimes.