cover image Flight

Flight

Fran Dorf. Dutton Books, $20 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-525-93482-0

Flower child Lana Paluka is the victim of the ultimate bad trip. Back in 1969, the day after she'd come home from the Woodstock festival, she fell off a cliff and lapsed into the 20-year catatonic stupor from which she has just awakened as this riveting novel opens. She learns that her high school sweetheart, Ethan Skitt, accused of having pushed her, was convicted of attempted murder, largely on the eyewitness testimony of schoolmates Randy Slessenger and Alan Wells. As she begins to recover and to regain her memory of the events leading up to the fall, Ethan escapes from prison and starts making his way to her. Is he coming to finish the job, or is he the innocent victim of a frame-up out to set the record straight? Enter Jack Wells, brother of Alan, now a reporter who has landed a book contract to tell Lana's story. Adroitly interweaving these events with '60s flashbacks (and adding an occasional dollop of mysticism) and judiciously pacing her characters' progress toward the shocking truth, Dorf ( A Reasonable Madness ) thoroughly tantalizes. Doubleday Book Club selection; Literary Guild selection. (Aug.)