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Air Traffic : A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America by Gregory Pardlo (2018, Hardcover)
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Air Traffic: A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America by Gregory Pardlo explores the complexities of fatherhood, identity, and the American dream through the eyes of an African American pilot. With an engaging narrative that intertwines personal anecdotes and broader societal issues, Pardlo crafts a literary journey that is as touching as it is insightful. This hardcover edition, published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group in 2018, measures 8.5 x 6 inches and boasts 288 pages of rich content. The book delves into the nuances of parenting, personal memoirs, and essays, making it a compelling read for anyone interested in the dynamics of family and relationships within the African American community.
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
ISBN-101524731765
ISBN-139781524731762
eBay Product ID (ePID)240204460
Product Key Features
Book TitleAir Traffic : a Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America
Number of Pages288 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication Year2018
TopicParenting / Fatherhood, American / African American, Personal Memoirs, Literary, American / General, Essays
IllustratorYes
GenreLiterary Criticism, Family & Relationships, Biography & Autobiography, Literary Collections
AuthorGregory Pardlo
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height1.1 in
Item Weight15.7 Oz
Item Length8.5 in
Item Width6 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN2017-047413
Reviews"Gregory Pardlo's Air Traffic is not just one of the best memoirs I've ever read--it's an ice core drill through the complexities of American life. Each chapter illuminates how economics, class, labor relations, education, and race have shaped the American character, and the lives of the truly remarkable people here, with deep knowledge and with exquisite sentences that alternately surprise, move, and delight." -- Phil Klay, author of Redeployment "With grace and edge, Greg Pardlo's Air Traffic refuses to satisfy itself with easy epiphanies that might populate another book. Instead, it turns over these revelations like so many mossy stones to show the live creatures beneath: the broken promises and blemished mythologies and unexpected moments of grace that compost the soil of any life. Pardlo's voice is smart, funny, restless, ruminative, and not quite like anything you're ever read. Change that. Read this." -- Leslie Jamison "Air Traffic is at once a searing memoir of a crucial labor movement defeat, and a moving consideration of a father's legacy--a profound reflection on both the American past and present. And with it, Pardlo shows himself a memoirist to rival the poet he already is." -- Alexander Chee, author of Queen of the Night "A remarkable achievement, Air Traffic is a mordantly charming, raw, comic and wise blend of intellectual sophistication and deeply honest storytelling. It is also a glorious addition to the father-son memoir genre that extends from John Stuart Mill, Edmund Gosse and V. S. Pritchett to Geoffrey Wollf and Philip Roth. Gregory Pardlo has written a classic. " -- Phillip Lopate "Gregory Pardlo has written an elegant series of essays that deftly illuminate complex issues of race and labor politics in America, the ways that alcoholism and ambition seep their vivid dyes through the fibers of a family, and the messy redemption of our greatest efforts to change ourselves. With a poet's patience, he distills the riot of living into clean and graceful prose that I gulped in luxurious draughts." -- Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart and Abandon Me "Pardlo's memoir is by turns analytical, angry, ironic, raw and emotional. A Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, he fortifies his prose with images that jolt reflection and meditation to something closer to lived and felt experience....While this vertiginous memoir covers Pardlo's youth, brief Marine reserves stint, false-starting college career, two marriages, alcoholism, parenthood, and the constant negotiations of race, its center is Pardlo's relationship with his father. A demanding man, both blunt and cryptic, the elder Pardlo tested his son with a rigorous trial-by-dictionary that required the second-grader to look up an assigned word, memorize the definition, and learn all other unfamiliar words it referenced. That this 'ordeal' gave Pardlo a love of language rather than an aversion to it is amazing....Among the standouts in this impressive overview of a life are Pardlo's insightful profiles of the family dynamics of alcoholism, and the sheer exuberance of family life. 'Behind The Wheel' could almost be a short story, as the voices of three generations quibble, explain, protest, and joke, all at the same time." -- Laurie Greer , Politics & Prose
Dewey Edition23
Dewey Decimal811.6
SynopsisAfter winning the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize for his poetry collection, Totem, Pardlo followed up with Digest and won the Pulitzer Prize. So expect only the best writing from this memoir about a father's legacy, a son's -struggles, and the burdens of African American manhood. Pardlo's middle-class African American family was reasonably well off until his father lost his job after participating in the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Strike of 1981 and sank into addiction. Greg Jr. wended his way from marine boot camp to college (several tries) to alcohol before love and parenthood set him straight., From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning poet: an extraordinary memoir and blistering meditation on fatherhood, race, addiction, and ambition. Gregory Pardlo's father was a brilliant and charismatic man--a leading labor organizer who presided over a happy suburban family of four. But when he loses his job following the famous air traffic controllers' strike of 1981, he succumbs to addiction and exhausts the family's money on more and more ostentatious whims. In the face of this troubling model and disillusioned presence in the household, young Gregory rebels. Struggling to distinguish himself on his own terms, he hustles off to Marine Corps boot camp. He moves across the world, returning to the United States only to take a job as a manager-cum-barfly at his family's jazz club. Air Traffic follows Gregory as he builds a life that honors his history without allowing it to define his future. Slowly, he embraces the challenges of being a poet, a son, and a father as he enters recovery for alcoholism and tends to his family. In this memoir, written in lyrical and sparkling prose, Gregory tries to free himself from the overwhelming expectations of race and class, and from the tempting yet ruinous legacy of American masculinity. Air Traffic is a richly realized, deeply felt ode to one man's remarkable father, to fatherhood, and to the frustrating yet redemptive ties of family. It is also a scrupulous, searing examination of how manhood can be fashioned in our cultural landscape., The Pardlos were an average, middle-class African American family living in a New Jersey Levittown- charismatic Gregory Sr., an air traffic controller, his wife, and their two sons, bookish Greg Jr. and musical-talent Robbie. But when "Big Greg" loses his job after participating in the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Strike of 1981, he becomes a disillusioned, toxic, looming presence in the household--and a powerful rival for young Greg. While Big Greg succumbs to addiction and exhausts the family's money, Greg Jr. rebels--he joins a boot camp for prospective Marines, follows a woman to Denmark, drops out of college again and again, and yields to alcoholism. Years later, he falls for a beautiful, no-nonsense woman named Ginger and becomes a parent himself. Then, he finally grapples with the irresistible yet ruinous legacy of masculinity he inherited from his father. In chronicling his path to recovery and adulthood--Gregory Pardlo gives us a compassionate, loving ode to his father, to fatherhood, and to the frustrating-yet-redemptive ties of family, as well as a scrupulous, searing examination of how African American manhood is shaped by contemporary American life.
LC Classification NumberPS3616.A737Z46 2018
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