The Seaplane on Final Approach

A Novel

By: Rebecca Rukeyser

Narrated by: Jeremy Carlisle Parker

Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

A TIME BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER • A lusty young woman seeks out experience on a remote Alaskan homestead in this erotic and darkly humorous novel

"Rukeyser weaves a dreamlike spell—'Twin Peaks’ by way of ‘Northern Exposure.’" —LA Times

"Fantastic.” —The New York Times

Mira is a loner, a drop out, an obsessive fascinated by the concept of sleaze. She wants two things: to move to Alaska and find the tattooed fisherman that’s the object of her desire. Her single-mindedness takes her to the remote Kodiak Archipelago, where she finds work at a homestead-turned-tourist-lodge offering a carousel of meticulously scripted Alaskan experiences.

But the lodge is failing and, as life on Lavender Island becomes increasingly claustrophobic and strange, Mira’s plans for her future become more elaborate and perverse.

Part meditation on unhinged longing, part biting commentary on eco-tourism and the mythology of the American West, and part yearning portrayal of people at the end of their tether, The Seaplane on Final Approach is wholly original, “a perfect blend of deep, dark humor, sadness, and (of course), adolescent horniness (Literary Hub).”

©2022 Rebecca Rukeyser (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"I didn’t realize how much I needed this lusty, funny, heartbreaking book until I devoured it in a single sitting. The Seaplane on Final Approach is a novel set at the edge of the world, about people who belong everywhere and nowhere and the vast, unknowable wilderness of desire. A sharp, flawless debut. Sexy and dark and strange and absolutely perfect.”—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House and Her Body & Other Parties

"An age-old story—puppy love meets jaded lust to dance their death spiral inside a young woman's head—told with the shameless authenticity of 2022. I ate it up."—Nell Zink, author of Doxology

"Brilliant and possibly the horniest thing I've ever read. But this is Advanced Horniness, the kind that can see the sex in phone book listings, vicarious jealousy, five thousand dollars, and the cold devouring ocean. It's as if Muriel Spark got seasick and dropped molly instead of dramamine."—Tony Tulathimutte, author of Private Citizens

Enjoyable if a little one note

Great characters, performance, prose, but not exactly a knock down drag out novel. Would recommend tho if you like…. Sleaze :)

Ok, a skimpy glimpse of life in Alaska

Character ok, story week. Social landscape description hood. Read ok but a bit sarcastic in tone.