By Melissa DeCarlo
(Reviewed by Carol Clancy)
The Art of Crash Landing opens right in the middle of Mattie Wallace’s mess of a life - the crash landing of the novel’s title. Maddie takes all of her possessions in two trash bags to her stepfather’s trailer in a Florida mobile park after a fight with her boyfriend. She says she’s leaving for good this time - though it seems like maybe she’s promised herself that many times before - and settles in with her stepfather Queeg until she can pull herself together. Both Queeg and the reader sense that's going to be a very long time, if ever, and Queeg, while sympathetic, is struggling with his own problems. But when Mattie realizes her late grandmother’s lawyer in Oklahoma has been trying to reach her about an inheritance, she decides on a whim to drive her old car from Florida to Oklahoma to claim whatever money is coming to her.
The setup seems obvious in the first few chapters - from the broken-down car to the grandmother’s inheritance being tied up in court. Every decision Mattie makes is suspect, and you wonder how she’s managed to survive as an adult. Initially, the novel seems like another modern story of a lost soul who drinks too much and smokes too much and sleeps with all the wrong men. Mattie is a sarcastic narrator who is funny, but a little frustrating. Yet there is something compelling about Mattie that makes you hang in there. As the novel progresses, her experiences in Oklahoma keep getting more interesting, and a deeper, more mature part of her shows up. The plot takes some interesting turns with a satisfying ending. This is not a novel I’d ever heard of before I read it, and I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked it up, but ultimately I enjoyed it.
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