The Last Flight of Poxl West

by Daniel Torday

Overview

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
WINNER OF THE 2015 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD /JJ GREENBERG MEMORIAL AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE 2017 SAMI ROHR PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE 2015 WALLANT AWARD


A stunning debut novel from award-winning author Daniel Torday, in which a young man recounts his idolization of his Uncle Poxl, a Jewish, former RAF pilot, exploring memory, fame, and storytelling.

Poxl West fled the Nazis’ onslaught in Czechoslovakia. He escaped their clutches again in Holland. He pulled Londoners from the Blitz’s rubble. He wooed intoxicating, unconventional beauties. He rained fire on Germany from his RAF bomber.

Poxl West is the epitome of manhood and something of an idol to his teenage nephew, Eli Goldstein, who reveres him as a brave, singular, Jewish war hero. Poxl fills Eli’s head with electric accounts of his derring-do, adventures, and romances, as he collects the best episodes from his storied life into a memoir.

He publishes that memoir, Skylock, to great acclaim, and its success takes him on the road, and out of Eli’s life. With his uncle gone, Eli throws himself into reading his opus and becomes fixated on all things Poxl.

But as he delves deeper into Poxl’s history, Eli begins to see that the life of the fearless superman he’s adored has been much darker than Poxl let on, and filled with unimaginable loss from which he may have not recovered. As the truth about Poxl emerges, it forces Eli to face irreconcilable facts about the war he’s romanticized and the vision of the man he’s held so dear.

Daniel Torday’s debut novel, The Last Flight of Poxl West beautifully weaves together the two unforgettable voices of Eli Goldstein and Poxl West, exploring what it really means to be a hero, and to be a family, in the long shadow of war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250081605
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

DANIEL TORDAY is the Director of Creative Writing at Bryn Mawr College. An author and former editor at Esquire magazine, Torday currently serves as an editor at The Kenyon Review. His short stories and essays have appeared in Esquire, Glimmer Train, Harper Perennial's Fifty-Two Stories, Harvard Review, The New York Times and The Kenyon Review. Torday's novella, The Sensualist, won the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction.

Editorial Reviews

"It's Mr. Torday's ability to shift gears between sweeping historical vistas and more intimate family dramas, and between old-school theatrics and more contemporary meditations on the nature of storytelling that announces his emergence as a writer deserving of attention."-The New York Times

"Lyrical prose glides over the page as smoothly as a Spitfire across a cloudless sky...an utterly accomplished novel."-The New York Times Book Review

"The last sentence of Torday's novel is one of the great conclusions...Torday gives his dual protagonists the ending they deserve...a real one, equal parts inevitable and explosive."-Esquire

“Torday is a consummate storyteller.”—Electric Literature

“Torday's tour-de-force of a novel puts a fresh spin on World War II (yes, really) in a page-turning tale of truth, lies and forgiveness.” —BookPage

“While Torday is more likely to be compared to Philip Roth or Michael Chabon than Gillian Flynn, his debut novel has two big things in common with Gone Girl—it's a story told in two voices, and it's almost impossible to discuss without revealing spoilers. A richly layered, beautifully told and somehow lovable story about war, revenge and loss.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“A wonderful accomplishment of storytelling verve: tender, lyrical, surprising, full of beautifully rendered details. Torday is a prodigiously talented writer, with a huge heart.” —George Saunders, author of Tenth of December

“According to Tim O'Brien, ‘A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe.' Daniel Torday knows how to tell a true war story, and The Last Flight of Poxl West is a stunning debut. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, The Last Flight of Poxl West resurrects a chapter of World War II that was a complete surprise to me. It's the viscerally-gripping, eye-wateringly moving first-person account of a young Czech Jew who flew missions for the RAF during World War II; it's also a profound and timely meditation on the desire for justice, retribution, and redemption. This book is unputdownable, wise, and unbelievably generous. Its ending left me speechless.” —Karen Russell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Swamplandia!

“The Last Flight of Poxl West is a beautifully told and moving story of love, loss, and growing up. Daniel Torday is a stunning writer, and his first novel is full of elegant, thought provoking surprises.” —Edan Lepucki, author of California

“This ambitious, complex novel beautifully interprets and illuminates the past with contemporary eyes and a gentle heart.” —Mary Gaitskill, author of Veronica, a National Book Award Finalist

“The Last Flight of Poxl West is a love story, a war story, a family saga, an intimate view of vast Twentieth Century events, a treatise on the telling of stories, and a damned good read as well. Torday's language is precise and it is grand; and he uses it to describe scenes you will swear he was witness to himself. The details, the insights, the knowledge, the writing, and the unmistakable empathy— these elements add up to a stellar, memorable book.” —Robin Black, author of Life Drawing

“Love, lust, war, revenge, betrayal: I was inclined to like this book before I opened it. Daniel Torday's gorgeous prose and moral candor made me love it. A spectacular debut. Torday is quickly making a name for himself as one of our finest young novelists.” —Daniel Smith, author of the New York Times bestseller Monkey Mind

“OMFG! What a book! Eli Goldstein has the retrospective candor of Roth's Zuckerman and the sensitivity of a Harold Brodkey narrator, and Poxl West is an unforgettable creation. Plus, things happen in this book, big things like the world wars. A delight!” —Gary Shteyngart, author of Little Failure

“A brilliant—and perhaps even more importantly, hilarious—book about what we make of our heroes, and what our heroes make of us. It's all here: the crime of storytelling, the joy of storytelling, the story hidden not so well in history, and the pleasures and problems of one word placed so well after another.” —Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances

“Daniel Torday's The Last Flight of Poxl West interweaves a powerful war story with a profound meditation on the need such stories fill in us, and the truths they can sometimes obscure. Eli Goldstein's relationship with Poxl West is strange and moving, and the book's final pages present a deep and revealing pathos. Really good stuff.” —Phil Klay, author of Redeployment, National Book Award winner

From the Publisher

Love, lust, war, revenge, betrayal: I was inclined to like this book before I opened it. Daniel Torday's gorgeous prose and moral candor made me love it. A spectacular debut. Torday is quickly making a name for himself as one of our finest young novelists.

author of the New York Times bestseller Monkey Min Daniel Smith

According to Tim O'Brien, 'A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe.' Daniel Torday knows how to tell a true war story, and The Last Flight of Poxl West is a stunning debut. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, The Last Flight of Poxl West resurrects a chapter of World War II that was a complete surprise to me. It's the viscerally-gripping, eye-wateringly moving first-person account of a young Czech Jew who flew missions for the RAF during World War II; it's also a profound and timely meditation on the desire for justice, retribution, and redemption. This book is unputdownable, wise, and unbelievably generous. Its ending left me speechless.

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Swamplandi Karen Russell

…[an] expertly crafted first novel…There doesn't seem to be a germane subject for which the author hasn't done his homework, from the leather trade to the cockpit controls of military aircraft to the kabbalah…And all of this is rendered in Torday's unobtrusively lyrical prose, superb Rothian sentences that glide over the page as smoothly as a Spitfire across a cloudless sky…The Last Flight of Poxl West…[is] an utterly accomplished novel…Daniel Torday is a writer…with real talent and heart.

The New York Times Book Review - Teddy Wayne

The Last Flight provides both a touching, old-fashioned drama about war and love…and a more modern framing tale that makes us rethink the impulses behind storytelling, and the toll that self-dramatization can take not only on practitioners but also on those who believe and cherish their fictions…It's Mr. Torday's ability to shift gears between sweeping historical vistas and more intimate family dramas, and between old-school theatrics and more contemporary meditations on the nature of storytelling that announces his emergence as a writer deserving of attention.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

01/12/2015
Torday introduces readers to Poxl West, whose bestselling 1980s memoir Skylock is the book within this riveting debut novel. Eighteen-year-old Poxl fled his native Czechoslovakia for Rotterdam when Hitler rolled into Austria, never to see his parents again. As the war progressed, he made his way to London, eventually flying bombers in the RAF. Those impossibly difficult war years unfold over five acts, which constitute the Shylock part of the structure and which alternate with the narrative of Elijah Goldstein, Poxl’s young nephew. Torday’s descriptive and powerful prose stands as the book’s highlight. The book-within-a-book memoir is a page-turner, particularly as Poxl remembers his mother and father and their marriage, and his time in London during the Blitz. His fixation and guilt over the love he left behind in Rotterdam, though, nearly devolves into navel gazing. The author recalibrates his character’s self-indulgence in time for Skylock to end on a poignant note. Elijah’s chapters culminate with him looking at his uncle through more mature eyes. Torday’s restraint as this story line takes on new importance shows mastery of his craft, culminating with a tender ending to Elijah’s narrative. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2015
Poxl West has just published a memoir of his experiences as a Czechoslovakian Jewish refugee who became an RAF fighter pilot during World War II. His nephew, Elijah Goldstein, basks in the reflected aura of Uncle Poxl's success. However, there's a problem. Soon after the book's publication, Poxl is exposed as a fraud. He never flew the missions he described. The man who had been Elijah's surrogate grandfather disappears from his life, depriving the boy of his greatest hero. Telling this story by alternating between Poxl's memoir and Elijah's present-day experiences, the author of the award-winning novella The Sensualist crafts an elegant debut of how war affects individuals, how disappointment in our loved ones can turn a life around in seconds, and how that life can be repaired. VERDICT Torday (director of creative writing, Bryn Mawr Coll.) is a polished writer who creates an unforgettable character for whom the term flight describes his whole life. Poxl's inability to reconcile his love for people with their less-than-heroic behaviors, in the end, leaves him completely alone. This portrait of a Holocaust survivor's experiences is innovative, and its page-turning plot will keep readers on the edge until the very end. [See Prepub Alert, 9/29/14.]—Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS

Library Journal

★ 2014-11-19
Elijah Goldstein's devoted Uncle Poxl is a Jewish World War II fighter pilot and an overnight literary sensation. What more could a boy want?While Torday (The Sensualist: A Novella, 2012) is more likely to be compared to Philip Roth or Michael Chabon than Gillian Flynn, his debut novel has two big things in common with Gone Girl—it's a story told in two voices, and it's almost impossible to discuss without revealing spoilers. The reversal that defines this novel arrives late and changes the meaning of everything that's come before, but that's all you'll hear about it here. One of the two narrators is Elijah Goldstein, a 15-year-old student in Boston, who begins his tale, promisingly, like this: "Before halftime on Super Bowl Sunday, January 1986, my uncle Poxl came over. He was just months from reaching the height of his fame, and unaware that the game was being played." This fame results from publication of Skylock: The Memoir of a Jewish RAF Bomber, which Uncle Poxl has read aloud to Eli in manuscript over sundaes at Cabot's after outings to the opera and the symphony. The entire text of Skylock appears here as a book within a book. Poxl's memoir opens with his childhood in Czechoslovakia, where he's the son of a wealthy leather-factory owner and a bohemian mother who poses nude for Egon Schiele. When the Anschluss begins, his parents send him to Rotterdam, where he falls hard for a prostitute. His next move takes him to London, where he joins the war effort and ultimately flies a bomber in a firefight over Hamburg. After each section of the memoir, Eli returns to fill us in on reviews in the Times and the Economist, the book signings and the things we will not be discussing in this review. A richly layered, beautifully told and somehow lovable story about war, revenge and loss.

Kirkus Reviews