Runaway Skies

After enjoying Runaway Train, I was looking forward to reading Simon Doyle's second book, and I was not disappointed. It's a good read. Doyle has a confident writing style that leaves me feeling I am in capable hands when I read. The characters are well-drawn and believable, and the growth of the relationship between Caleb and Kai makes sense, and the lead-up to the first kiss is gradual, but never so slow as to be irritating.

Although Runaway Bay was established in Runaway Train as the retreat for Denis and Oliver, I am not so sure that this book fits so thoroughly into the 'Runaway' theme. Loss and abandonment are more at the centre of this plot: Caleb has lost his heart, Kai and his sister have been abandoned by their family. Caleb's father is a believable narcissist, never really able to hold his family securely in his mind. Jayne's hold on her heart, and on life, is equally tenuous, and this potentiality for loss is captured in the moving momentary image as Caleb looks through the door at Jayne:

The heat of his hand-print left a mark on the glass, and it faded as he walked away.

But although 'flight' is a usual word for running away, in this book it seems much more about gaining independence: taking wing; learning the techniques of flying solo. Caleb has the experience of being most himself when he is in the air, just as Kai and his sister Fatima both gain a hold on their true identity when they manage to separate from the stranglehold of their parents. My sense is that this book is not so much about what they are running away from; it is more about what they are running to.

It is certainly about discovering freedom from intrusive burdens that actually belong to someone else. Finally telling the story of his sister's apparent death, Kai says this:

My spirit died when she gave me her lie and I made it my own.

Kai is perceptive in the way he acknowledges both the impingement on him of something that belongs to his sister, as well as his own responsibility for having taken it in. The same could be said of Caleb's continuing adherence to his unsatisfactory father, in spite of realising that it is really his father's guilt that causes the difficulty, rather than anything that Caleb is responsible for.

I share the reservations that "Dan" expressed so clearly in his review of 26th Jan. I have a further stylistic comment that relates to the use of flashbacks. If it is important to keep up the momentum of the tale when tension is high, it is useful to use the flashback device afterwards to make readers aware of some important happening, now in the past, that would have interrupted the flow of the story and slowed it down had it been introduced at the time it happened. Unfortunately, if it is over-used, it has the reverse effect, and can even be disorientating.

When chapter headings alternate between Caleb and Kai, I somehow expect them to signal alternate points of view on the action. It seems like an attempt by the author to back away from the responsibility of telling the story, or perhaps an effort to involve the reader more closely with the experience of one or other of the participants. In this particular case, though, there is no real difference in the points of view, and the actual voice in which the story is told remains that of the author, despite the chapter headings. Like it or not, he is in the position that Philip Pullman (see: Who's Story is it?) has called 'the omniscient narrator', able, apparently, to see and record the experience of all the characters. Personally I am relieved about this, as to my prejudiced mind the pretence of different points of view never quite works: jumping in and out of different characters' heads? No.

I do feel the ending of Skies is a bit rushed, and the sudden appearance of Oliver and Denis has the discomfort of a Deus ex Machina, descending from outside the world of this story to resolve all apparent loose ends, such as: how will Fatima and Avery manage to pay the rent? Why did they suddenly adopt different names? If the settlement is so secret, how did they manage to find out about it? And who on earth is this Oliver Lloyd character who is so famous, apparently, as to need no introduction? As an infinitely rich owner of land and helicopters and handy bottles of champagne, who solves almost all problems instantly, he has the rather uncomfortable imprint of an omnipotent parent - exactly the character Kai and Caleb have struggled to escape from. I would feel happier if Oliver and Denis had made an appearance earlier in the book, offering less and demanding more. I hate the thought that Caleb just might wake up one morning to find a Cessna of his very own parked outside.

Although I have typically gone on at length about all of this, I can't help really liking Simon Doyle's work, and feel he has a great deal to say. I am really looking forward to seeing where he takes us in Runaway Ridge.