The Seaplane on Final Approach (Paperback) - Rebecca Rukeyser

A razor-sharp debut about desire, artifice and dissolution on a remote homestead in Alaska, for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh, Nell Zink and Miranda July

An electrifying debut novel about a young woman and her desire for sleaze, whose idyllic summer on a remote Alaskan homestead takes a disturbing turn. "Sexy and dark and strange and absolutely perfect." Carmen Maria Machado "Puppy love meets jaded lust to dance their death spiral inside a young woman's head ... I ate it up." Nell Zink Tourists arrive all summer, by boat or seaplane, at Stu and Maureen Jenkins's Lavender Island Wilderness Lodge in the Kodiak Archipelago, expecting adventure. But the spontaneity of their authentic Alaskan wilderness experience is meticulously scripted, except when real danger rears its head. Stu and Maureen's lodge is failing, as is their marriage. Mira has been hired for the season as the lodge's baker and housekeeper. But she's also busy gleefully nursing twin obsessions: building a working theory of what constitutes 'sleaze' and pursuing a young fisherman she deems the embodiment of all things deliciously sleazy. Her plans become more perverse and elaborate, even as life on Lavender Island starts to unravel. By midseason, it becomes clear that Stu, the jovial, predatory patriarch of the lodge, has turned his sexual attentions to another young employee. As the mood of the lodge spirals into chaos, the inhabitants realize just how isolated Lavender Island really is. Hilarious, sensual, and charged with menace, The Seaplane on Final Approach brilliantly illuminates the mirage-thin line between the artificial and the feral. In this daring and psychologically razor-sharp debut, Rukeyser's characters tear aside the facade of good manners to reveal all of our deepest needs and naked desires.

About the Author

Rebecca Rukeyser is the recipient of the inaugural Berlin Senate grant for non-German literature. Her fiction has appeared in such publications as ZYZZYVA, the Massachusetts Review and Best American Nonrequired Reading. She earned her MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop and teaches writing at Bard College Berlin.