Books

From a marketing standpoint, Jonathan Miles' novel Dear American Airlines is a brilliant conception. In an era of often-frustrating travel, a book in the form of a complaint letter to an airline ought to appeal to readers with enough money to buy tickets, which means they also have enough money to buy the novel. Furthermore, the book is brief enough to read during a long wait at an airport.

SCOTT LAUMANN /Special Contributor

Fortunately for the cause of literature, the novel is not only marketable but also literary. Mr. Miles is a superb writer and learned, too. Allusions, literary and otherwise, abound.

The letter writer-protagonist is Bennie Ford, a mediocre poet, who, at age 53, makes some of his living translating books between Polish and English. Not all that accomplished at dealing with everyday life, Ford is trying to reach Los Angeles from New York City, but is delayed at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. As the hours pass, it becomes clear that Ford will miss his daughter's wedding; attending the wedding is the purpose of his journey.

Ford's everyday life is more complicated than he would like, as the wedding itself suggests. It might not qualify as an official wedding, because his daughter is marrying a woman. Ford has been estranged from his daughter for a long time, in part because the divorce from her mother turned ugly.

Given that mess, Ford is unsure what to do while sitting in O'Hare except compose a complaint letter to the airline. It starts like this: "My name is Benjamin R. Ford and I am writing to request a refund in the amount of $392.68." There is nothing extraordinary about that opening sentence. But, with the second sentence, the letter goes off the track and barely ever returns.

To explain why he should receive a refund, Ford delineates the reason the delay will cost him so dearly in his personal life. After he opens up his personal life, it is a short step to its intersection with his professional life. Soon, whoever reads the letter at the airline, if indeed anybody will read it, will know a great deal about Ford's strengths and flaws.

Ford is a sympathetic character, partly because of his many flaws, partly in spite of them. Learning about his life keeps a reader going, but the unfolding of Ford's character is not the novel's only strength. Humor is a bulwark, too; on almost every page, Mr. Miles manages to make Ford laugh-out-loud funny.

Mr. Miles, who honed his writing in Oxford, Miss., with Larry Brown and Barry Hannah, now lives in New York. He is best known as the cocktails columnist for The New York Times. In the future, his renown as a novelist might eclipse everything else.

Steve Weinberg is a magazine feature writer and book author.

Jonathan Miles

(Houghton Mifflin, $22)