Dear American Airlines

by Jonathan Miles
Hennepin County Library audiobook 6 CDs
read by Mark Bramhall
genre: realistic fiction

I thought this would be a funny, light book. Not so much. There *were* parts that made me laugh out loud, like when he referred to a burrito he'd eaten as a "hippo turd." But it was much more crude and sad than funny. What kept me going? It was also touching and beautiful in parts.

Liked:
- literary allusions galore!
- fascinating characters - Miss Willa (his mom), Stella and Stella Junior ("Speck"), etc.
- Biblical references - Abraham on Mount Moriah, Matthew 3:20, etc.
- His dad, a Polish exterminator who becomes a mechanic.

Disliked:
- way too much alcohol! That was part of Bennie's character and the storyline, I know. But it was so painful that he kept drowning himself in alcohol. And ruining his life and the lives of others with his drinking.
- Aloysius (?) and the story about Volente (?) that Bennie is working to translate . . . I probably wasn't being a very attentive listener, because it always seemed so disjointed to switch from Bennie's storyline (either waiting at O'Hare or in his own past) to the narrative from the story that he is translating. I'm sure it fit / paralleled perfectly well, but my brain didn't reconcile the Polish author's post-war story with the main story.
- not knowing at the end if Bennie connected with his daughter, committed suicide, or what . . . again, I probably wasn't being super attentive but I get the sense that the ending is purposefully vague.

Basically, this was a much more sophisticated (and yet, also crude with language and sex) story than I anticipated. I thought it was a funny rant against airlines and their infuriating policies. From the blurb on the back: "Frustrated, irate, and helpless, he starts a letter. But what begins as a hilariously excoriating demand for a refund soon becomes the cri de coeur of a life misspent, of talent wasted. His letter is a marvel of lacerating wit, heart-on-sleeve emotion, and wide-ranging erudition . . . "

Bramhall's vocal work is amazing - the softer female voices, the N'O'leans drawl, the Polish, the emotion . . . he had it all.