I believe journey does expose individuals’s true character. There’s simply so many moments of frustration and anger. You see all these movies that go viral of individuals entering into fights on the gate or on the aircraft, or no matter, as a result of there’s such a sense of helplessness: in case your flight’s canceled, there’s nothing you are able to do, and also you may be stranded someplace for days. It does appear a little bit unnatural to have the ability to get on a flight after which be on the opposite facet of the world in like 15 hours, contemplating that we have been by no means ready to try this for many of [human history]. I do surprise if that’s disorienting, virtually on a mobile stage for us. [Flying] is a really surreal expertise that we see as regular at this level.
There’s additionally a liminal expertise in flying and being in airports. The concept of Linda flying someplace, not caring in any respect concerning the vacation spot, simply eager to take the flight, after which spending the night time within the airport by alternative, and flying proper again appears so perverse. And it feeds again into that extra indirect commentary on local weather change, and the way we’re all fetishizing carbon consumption in a means. But Linda does it in a extra literal means.
People won’t count on this guide to have a deal with discovering connection in surprising locations. How did that emerge as a theme?
In earlier drafts, there was a harshness to the guide that was growing from Linda being so remoted by her obsession, and there was nowhere, actually, for the character to go from there, or for the story to go. I did not need it to be a sarcastic or cynical guide. It would’ve been the straightforward solution to write it, nevertheless it additionally would not be as attention-grabbing. I take into consideration Linda as somebody who’s fairly self-aware and simply occurs to have this intense reference to planes and holds this perception in what her final future is. But she has to dwell her regular life whereas she waits for her future to be manifested. And she nonetheless has the identical wants for human companionship, and to really feel like she belongs. Linda’s final want is to simply be capable to be herself, however she’s written that off so early on as not being doable as a result of she’s conscious that her want could be very unusual. That’s the trail of the guide: How is Linda going to be her true self and be accepted?
I completed the guide with a renewed sense of humanity. How do you hope individuals come out of studying your guide?
I like listening to stuff like that as a result of the premise sounds actually zany and bizarre, and should appear to be it may very well be one kind of guide. But then, when individuals truly learn it, they discover that it has extra depth. I hate the time period uplifting as a result of it looks like everybody all the time says books are uplifting. But there’s a extra life affirming message in it that is additionally paired with this very darkish type of undercurrent of dying. That, I believe, is a common human impulse. Oddly, in writing the guide, it made me much less afraid of flying. Diving extra into the world of aviation, I noticed how a lot goes into it, and the way many individuals are so devoted to it and the way the system is basically, actually strong total. Hopefully, that can proceed.
And so I hope individuals will really feel extra reinvigorated with a childlike pleasure to fly, too, as a result of that’s one thing that is overwhelmed out of us by the precise expertise of business journey. And additionally that individuals will really feel affirmed in their very own weirdness in the event that they really feel like they’ve components of themselves which might be unusual. It’s not solely Linda, however all of the characters within the guide which have human weirdness, even they’re higher capable of sublimate it, or channel it into extra standard needs. Everyone is bizarre: all of us have bizarre issues and bizarre ideas and concepts about ourselves. Maybe individuals will discover some companionship in Linda as a result of she’s positively a lady who likes to journey.
More fiction by Kate Folk
