Electric Literature: A Story Submerged in Sleaze, Told by a Creep
Nate Brown interviews Rebecca Rukeyser.
In Rebecca Rukeyser’s debut novel, voyeurism is the galvanizing force for a teen’s conclusions about life and love
Nate Brown interviews Rebecca Rukeyser.
In Rebecca Rukeyser’s debut novel, voyeurism is the galvanizing force for a teen’s conclusions about life and love
Boygenius like to read, and I do not mean that in a casual sense. A majority of our lunch is spent discussing literary fiction, where they ping-pong across the table with their recent reads. Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch. C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce. Jenny Offill’s Weather. Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues. And Rebecca Rukeyser’s The Seaplane on Final Approach, which Bridgers gives me a copy of the following day.
Name a book I should read over the holidays.
The Seaplane On Final Approach by Rebecca Rukeyser. It’s very horny and beautiful and I just ripped through it.
Rebecca Rukeyser weaves a dreamlike spell — “Twin Peaks” by way of “Northern Exposure.” Give it to someone who wants something weird, in the best way.
On The Pink Hotel and The Seaplane on Final Approach
RR: While you’re writing a book you get to spend your whole day fantasizing!
LJ: Exactly. What could possibly go wrong?
A novel about lust and longing on the Alaskan coast.
“Dark but somehow still quite funny […] As it entertains, it also explores human nature and something about what draws people to Alaska.”
[A] chimerical yet solemn debut […] this novels beautifully written and there is a strange authenticity to Mira’s dilemma: a young woman clinging to the lustful fantasies of youth, still searching for the true meaning of sleaze.
Martene McCaffrey of Unity Books Auckland reviews The Seaplane on Final Approach
Reviews of the top fiction titles released so far this year—including The Seaplane on Final Approach
The Seaplane on Final Approach is a jaunty, perfectly paced and exceptionally well-written coming-of-age story. It is slyly funny, with just the right touch of darkness to take the edge off.
The writers discuss Rukeyser’s debut novel, The Seaplane on Final Approach, and their long-lasting friendship.
We spoke with US author Rebecca Rukeyser about her debut novel, The Seaplane on Final Approach, and why she’d like to see more young female perverts…
Tony Tulathimutte talks to the author of The Seaplane on Final Approach
“A set of teenage girls wait out the summer in the wilds of Alaska in THE SEAPLANE ON FINAL APPROACH an impressive debut by German writer Rebecca Rukeyser.”
“Rukeyser’s assured, elegant prose brings colour and outline to the great outdoors … Her debut novel is part adventure story, party coming of age tale, about a woman on the cusp of adulthood, fully of inchoate longing. If moving a character to a foreign world in order to bring about a transformation is a time-word staple of fiction writers, Rukeyser takes that old trick and flies her reader off to a brave new world.”
“A deftly juggled mix of mercilessly sharp character judgment and gentle compassion […] definitely one for readers who enjoy the sort of dive into dysfunction championed by Ottessa Moshfegh.”
“The Seaplane at Final Approach is, like all great coming-of-age stories, a perfect blend of deep, dark humor, sadness, and (of course), adolescent horniness. It’s also a love letter to the specific wildness of a place—“God’s own country,” as the proprietor of the Lavender Island Wilderness Lodge tells it. Whether the place belongs to God or something sleazier, in Rukeyser’s hands, its strange magic bewitched me.”
“If you never quite thought of Alaska as the center of all things lust-worthy and sexy, Rebecca Rukeyser’s debut will have you thinking otherwise.”
“Fans of the sensuous, droll obscenity of Melissa Broder’s “The Pisces,” exhilarating transgressiveness of Alissa Nutting’s “Tampa”, uncanny sense of unease in Ottessa Moshfegh’s “Eileen,” and claustrophobic domesticity of Lucia Berlin’s “A Manual for Cleaning Women” will find a lot to love in Rebecca Rukeyser’s debut novel.”
“A 17-year-old flunks her exams and is sent to Alaska for punishment, in Rebecca Rukeyser’s disreputably funny debut novel.”
“The Seaplane On Final Approach is about how desire ruins everything […] When the end comes, it’s catastrophic, as well as lengthy, gruesome fun.”
“Mira heads to remote Alaska to spend the summer working at a floundering wilderness lodge. While there, she obsesses over her step-cousin and watches as the lodge owners’ dysfunctional marriage implodes. The Seaplane on Final Approach is a snappy character study and a meditation on sleaziness.”
“A strange, dreamlike coming-of-age story. . . The detached perspective through which we experience this unfolding narrative adds to its rarified, dreamy quality.”
“[An] intoxicating debut. . . Mira, with her propensity for daydreaming and detachment, imagines intricate inner lives for her colleagues, a charming and fascinating element that takes this beyond the standard workplace drama. Rukeyser’s signature bleak humor will leave readers excited to see what comes next.”