by John Boyne
First published 2025
Aaron Umber boards a flight with his fifteen-year-old son. They are heading halfway around the world to find a woman who has no idea they are coming. At 30,000 feet, there is nowhere to go and nothing to do but talk, or fail to talk. Aaron has spent years carrying damage from his own youth, and that weight has quietly worked its way into his relationship with his son. The boy is fifteen, old enough to notice, old enough to be hurt by it. Aaron knows the gap between them is real and getting wider. This trip is his attempt to do something about it, though he is not sure he knows how. John Boyne builds the story around the confined space of a long flight and the uneasy conversations that fill it. The journey forces Aaron to look at what was done to him, what he has done in turn, and whether any of it can be undone. A father trying to become something better than what he was made into sits at the center of this book.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, psychological-thriller, family-drama
Vibes: character-driven, emotionally-tense, intimate, introspective, thought-provoking
Tropes: emotional-journey, forced-proximity, second-chance
Setting: airplane
Period: contemporary
176 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday
Content warnings: abuse, emotional-abuse