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![[The Wonder Book of the Air]]( ../images/wonderbookoftheair.gif)
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That Cynthia Shearer is the curator of Rowan Oak, the Mississippi home of William Faulkner, should come as no surprise to readers of her accomplished first novel, The Wonder Book of the Air. Faulkner's themes and cadences live on in this searing tale of a Southern family fractured by alcohol, betrayal, and abuse. Ultimately, though, the story of the Durrance family is uniquely Shearer's own.
The Wonder Book of the Air spans three generations, from the year 1931 through the present. At the center of the story, and looming large over its later sections, is the charismatic patriarch Harrison Durrance. A decorated pilot during World War II, Durrance is magnetic and brash, a true believer in self-determination and optimism. Durrance's fascination with flight is among the traits he will bequeath to his children in the form of a much-thumbed encyclopedia, the eponymous "Wonder Book." It is the metaphor of flight, Durrance's desire for freedom and weightlessness, that provides the novel with some of its most lyrical moments. Family, particularly women, begin as symbols of ballast for Durrance, but all too often end up as dead weight. Ultimately, however, it is alcoholism that grounds him: he is forced out of the Army into early retirement. Out of combat, Durrance loses his bearings, and his life and marriage slowly unravel.
Durrance's drunken rages will haunt his children's and grandchildren's lives, as will his womanizing, which becomes more flagrant after his "retirement" and culminates in his abandonment of his disillusioned wife, Marjorie. Sex in "Wonder Book" is described as "that essential transaction," "the basis of all life," and Durrance is one of that transaction's most avid students. Indeed, the male propensity for infidelity seems to be a genetic inheritance in the Durrance family. The question seems to be not whether it will occur, but simply how best to deal with it when it does. Of the many long-suffering wives in this novel, the least martyred seems to be Olivia, Durrance's second wife, who finds a measure of peace in the realization that "it no longer made sense to try to own Harrison . . . It only made sense to practice love for every living thing." Olivia is one of the few Durrance women who ends up with a measure of self respect. It is to Shearer's credit, however, that we always see them within the context of their place and time; they are victims as much of economics and social mores as of their husbands' philandering.
And there are some bright spots in this frayed family tapestry. Adrienne, Marjorie's sister, overcomes a drug addiction (which begins in the aftermath of a failed affair) to grow into an irreverent 70 year old. Too, there is hope for the marriage of Madeira and Field, Harrison's son, and for Tory, their passionate, awkward daughter. Each Durrance that survives comes to realize for him or herself what patriarch Harrison Durrance realized at the beginning of his alcoholic descent:
"The nadir of your life is the holiest. There is a point at which you will opt for life you don't even understand yet. Something guides, something takes over and navigates . . . This is the true wonder book of the air, the secret flight manual tattooed inside you . . . The best to hope for is find it navigable."
Cynthia Shearer has written a painful, compassionate, and wonderfully navigable map of one American family's unraveling.
Sarah Midori Zimmerman is a writer in New York City.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.