"All smooth flights are alike. every turbulent flight is turbulent in its own way." A 2020 international bestseller, this lockdown publishing phenomenon in France, translated by Adriana Hunter, is WILD. The author himself calls it "experimental, bizarre, and a little crazy." To American readers, the premise sounds like something out of Blake Crouch: on March 10, 2021, Air France Flight 006 passes through a storm so terrible as to have no precedent and subsequently safely lands in New York, the shaken passengers disembarking on the runway. 106 days later, Air France Flight 006 endures a terrifying storm and subsequently lands safely in New York—and no one knows what to do, because this plane, these people, have already landed. Le Tellier employs this plotty premise to embark on a deeply philosophical examination of what it means to be human, as he portrays a half-dozen individuals wrestling with the unfathomable reality they now face, and—in cheekier passages—shows governmental authorities scramble to explain the unexplainable to their citizens. Amidst global uproar, the spotlight inevitably turns to the author of a recent work called The Anomaly, whose previously obscure work is believed to hold a key to understanding what went wrong with the two flights, and what that may reveal about the human condition—if there is such a thing. I couldn't put this down.
