Cape Cod Times:
Truro summer resident David Paradis, founder of the literary journal Pequod, has penned a debut novel grounded in the peculiar environment of the Outer Cape, where summers bring 24-plus-hour days and winters, well, you do what you can to get by. In this world, we meet Henry, a loser by some definitions, but a survivor by others. When he meets Kelly — survivor herself of a bad marriage — all Henry's odd habits come into sharper focus. Is there a future for these two?
READERS’ COMMENTS (from emails and on Facebook):
Truro summer resident David Paradis, founder of the literary journal Pequod, has penned a debut novel grounded in the peculiar environment of the Outer Cape, where summers bring 24-plus-hour days and winters, well, you do what you can to get by. In this world, we meet Henry, a loser by some definitions, but a survivor by others. When he meets Kelly — survivor herself of a bad marriage — all Henry's odd habits come into sharper focus. Is there a future for these two?
READERS’ COMMENTS (from emails and on Facebook):
- “I really enjoyed reading Flew Away—I wish it was longer. It took me away, into the lives of the characters. I only wish it did not end.”
- “Great book, read it in 3 days, really enjoyed it and got lost in the story.”
- “I'm 40 pages in and enjoying it immensely. Can't wait to see where these characters go!”
- “I finished Flew Away yesterday. Loved it! Thanks again and I look forward to your next one!”
- “I finished reading it last night … It is beautifully written … What a story. What an original story. Your focus is real people. Major parts of it are full of destiny and one can see it coming.”
- "If you are tired of mysteries and war stories, here is an original story that will tug at your heart. An uncomplicated man who lives off the land and the sea is suddenly blessed with a bird and a woman. His tender remembrance is richly detailed and filled with the local color of Cape Cod."
"Flew Away is a very good novel and an unusual one. I'm impressed by how far into Henry you were able to go, and how much of Kelly you show even though we perceive her only through Henry. It's sadly funny, how much he understands, given her conviction that he never listens to her. What you've done with Henry, revealing the inner life of a character who is so limited in his outward aspect, is a difficult task for any writer, and you've done it admirably. He's sympathetic even though I, reading, want to shake him sometimes. For me, he's a contemporary Everyman. He's like thousands of people who are neither educated nor cut out for competitive struggle, and for whom there is hardly a place in today's push-and-shove economy. He just wants to survive, with a bit of peace and some company. It's painful to witness the miseries of his serial employment. What gets right to the bone, though, is the deterioration of his marriage to Kelly. Those terrible conversations, when they just keep digging themselves into a deeper hole! Those are so excruciatingly real in their portrayal of her desire for a certain kind of emotional exchange, his efforts to please with the things he does, and their mutual incomprehension, stubbornness and pride.
"The cockatiel and the garden are wonderfully woven in. And I like the way you've used the Cape - its particular climate and economy of summer tourism and scrappy winter jobs - not as mere backdrop but as essential to the way Henry lives." –Nora Kelly, author of Old Wounds
Advance Reviews
"David Paradis’ first novel Flew Away is about the relationship between two local residents—Henry and Kelly—who live in the Provincetown area—an enclave of fashionable artists and gays at the tip of Cape Cod. The town vs. gown conflict is seen not just via the locals–who work like dogs in the summer and scrape to get by in the winter– but within Henry himself, a man even the locals see as a loser. Straddling these worlds is Kelly—a refugee from a bad marriage able to tolerate Henry’s personal and domestic slovenliness until she gets back on her feet and becomes a participant in the community Henry refuses to join. But is Henry a conscious and principled drop-out from the world of ambition and money, or simply too lazy and passive to participate responsibly in a relationship to which he is deeply attached? Told from Henry's point-of-view, the unexpected power of his unlettered language is a compelling and heartbreaking portrait of a man who sees everything but knows nothing." —Jane DeLynn, author of Leash
"What do men want? What do women want? They want each other, but sometimes, they don't. In Flew Away, David Paradis writes honestly about the struggle for love and recognition between a man and a woman. Paradis knows what women and men want, and he does not hold back. Flew Away is a beautiful and important story." —Min Jin Lee, author of the international best-seller Free Food for Millionaires
