Monday, November 24 - Jonathan Miles

Damn, this radio show is good! My guest on Monday at noon is Jonathan Miles, author of Dear American Airlines, a funny, smart, thoughtful first novel which novelist Richard Russo calls “wildly entertaining.” Stuck in O’Hare Airport because of an airline screw-up, Jonathan Miles’ anti-hero Benjamin Ford writes a letter of complaint to the airline, ostensibly to recoup the price of his ticket, but which becomes an epistolary autobiography that quickly turns into a careful, funny, elaborate, digressive complaint about his own dreadful life: the story of a wounded child of two nutty if victimized parents who has grown up to be a failed alcholic poet, disappointed translator, runaway father. Unhappy, sarcastic, self-conscious Ben is trying, impossibly, to redeem himself, or at least pretend he might redeem himself by living up to one singularly cherry-picked pledge made to the now adult daugher from whom he is estranged: that he will someday walk her down the aisle at her wedding. Enthusiastic reviews of this wonderful, small, elaborately digressive novel are all true. Its author, Jonathan Miles, is the cocktails columnist for the New York Times and books columnist for Men’s Journal. He’s written for the Times Book Review, GQ and his work has appeared in Best American Sports Writing and Best American Crime Writing. This is one of my favorite books of the year. Bibliocracy, noon, Monday on KPFK, righteous readers's radio for the people --- 90.7 FM and online too.