The Falling Woman by Richard Farrell

I snapped up an advanced reader's copy of this debut novel by Richard Farrell https://richardfarrell.net/ because I fell for the advertising blurbs that compared "The Falling Woman" to Michael Crichton's fascinating novel "Airframe," about the meticulous search for an explanation of an airline disaster. The Crichton book focused on the nitty gritty recreation of the physical

plane. The Farrell book is much more nuanced. It will lend itself to deep, possibly very personal conversations among book groups.

Charlie Radford is a young up-and-comer at the National Transportation Safety Board, a man whose greatest desire, to be a pilot, was thwarted by a medical condition discovered when he was barely out of his teens. His time in the air traded for a computer simulator, Charlie studies famous airplane accidents virtually, guilty in the knowledge that the only way his career can really take off is if he lands the opportunity to head up a major investigation of a tragedy. And then it happens.

Erin Geraghty's life trajectory has also been curtailed. The long married attorney and mother of two has been in treatment for pancreatic cancer, a debilitating and seldom curable disease that can leach you of the desire to live. Her husband Doug has the fight instinct. She has the flight. Against her family's wishes, Erin decides to take a break from infusions and illness and fly to California for a spiritual renewal retreat for those facing imminent death. Halfway across Kansas, Pointer Flight 795 disappears from the air traffic control radar screen, bodies, luggage, and metal debris littering the cornfields for miles.

For Charlie, the call to Kansas is his opportunity to make a name for himself. It's also an escape from the uncomfortable pressure that Wendy, his wife of five years, is laying on him. Though they had agreed not to have children even before their marriage, she has decidedly changed her mind. While she engages a gynecologist and begins house hunting, he finds himself ignoring her calls and texts and burying himself in paperwork. 

Charlie's and Erin's lives are about to intersect in a strange and unimaginable way. The questions that arise are enormously complicated, giving Farrell's story much more depth than just a tale of a fact-based recreation of an aviation accident. Discussion questions could center on faith and the belief in miracles (or the lack thereof), on the right to die and the right to privacy, on responsibility, as in what do we owe to our loved ones and to ourselves, what truths does a government owe to the public that pays its wages, and what can or should be left unsaid.  

Farrell's love of aviation is evident from the first page. His writing is especially lyrical when he describes flight, a metaphor aptly used throughout this lovely debut novel. The workings of the NTSB and the way that politics taints the board's integrity feel all too sadly true. But the book's true strength is in its realistic portrayal of relationships in all their glorious vicissitudes. "The Falling Woman" will be released in June. If you're lucky your library will be open by then and let you place a hold on it now!