Unlearning to Fly

Unlearning to Fly is the memoir of a bookworm growing up in Alaska--among people whose resilience, restlessness, and energy find their highest expression in winter ascents up Mount McKinley or first descents down wild rivers. These are the flying stories of a fearful pilot who admires but does not emulate the more daring exploits of her father and friends. The accounts of Jennifer Brice--at times poignant, funny, and downright nerve-racking--are engaging recollections of deadly, near-deadly, and occasionally comic encounters between human nature and Nature writ large. The unlikely romance between her parents, the Good Friday earthquake, the Alaska oil boom, a stint as a newspaper reporter, and the trials of a student pilot form engaging chapters in Brice’s remarkable life. These are the stories in which the physics and metaphors of flight--center of gravity, angle of attack, wake turbulence--illuminate Brice’s remarkable life story, recounted in prose that takes wing.

Jennifer Brice is an associate professor of English at Colgate University and the author of The Last Settlers. Her work has appeared in journals such as the Gettysburg Review, Manoa, and River Teeth.