(Fiction, Historical, American)

The last pilot is set in 1960 and 1961, during the early days of the American space program when US Armed Forces pilots were ‘testing-driving’ jets over the Mojave Desert and dying at an alarming rate in crashes.

Johncock has peopled his novel with the real players in the game – the real astronauts, the real bar owner, and so on, except for the main characters of Jim Harrison and his wife Grace. This fictional couple desperately want a child and think constantly about new life even as the news in the bar almost weekly seems to be the death of another colleague.

There are problems inherent in using actual historical figures that limit the possibilities for the fictional ones. The story never seemed to really take-off (no pun intended). In addition, I was irritated that the author moved between calling the protagonist ‘Jim’ and ‘Harrison’ for no apparent rhyme not reason. There was also a mention of placing clothes in large black trash bags which were not available for home use until the late ’60s – early ‘70s.

On the balance, I found the book to be somewhat interesting (the actual history) but ‘meh’ as far as the story.



3½ stars

Misleading blurb: Harrison is in the test pilot program and/or space program for all but the last chapter.

His personal life is sad, but it was interesting getting an 'insider' perspective of the beginnings of the space race.

Jim Harrison is a test pilot in the air force, a dangerous job that his wife, Grace, struggles to deal with...never knowing if her husband will come home. After having trouble getting pregnant, they finally have a child. Jim tries to balance work and home life, taking a new job as an astronaut for NASA. Then tragedy strikes, threatening everything he loves.
I loved the setting of the early space race in this book that is ultimately about relationships, family, grief, acceptance, and forgiveness. I don't know much about test pilots or NASA, but the author does a good job describing both programs and their related jobs without too much boring detail so the reader understands better the dedication of the pilots and the stress on the family life of the astronaut's wives.

DNF - though when reading this book it was fine I had no want to ever pick it up, I had to force myself

I tried to read it as far as I could. I really tried. Ughhh.

A wonderful look back at a time when the men-who-were-men shot for the stars - and made it, even as their individual lives threatened to buckle under the strain. The same thrill I felt as a kid watching Apollo 11, I felt reading The Last Pilot - it captures the spirit of the time and the complexities of being human in any time rather beautifully. The book is not without its flaws here and there - time begins to leap forward without much acknowledgement as the book nears the end, leaving the reader a bit unmoored if you don't know exactly when this or that flight went up (I don't even recall hearing about Kennedy's death, just suddenly the Daisy Girl tv ad), and the lack of quotation marks will always be a pet peeve of mine, even with Cormac McCarthy. But the novel transcends any little issues with its expansive, joyous look at the possibility of humanity - even in the face of tragedy. It's a reminder that all we need to do, to find hope, is look at the stars and say, "Next? There."

More soon at RB:

This is a good one. It deals with that era of time just before and into the dawning of the space program. But it isn't so much about the space program as one man's full self-realization throughout his life as a test pilot in the Mojave Desert for the USAF and NASA. But more than that, you get this great supporting cast of characters including Grace, his wife, and Florence, his daughter, and Pancho, a kick-ass female before females were allowed to be kick-ass.

The prose is stark. I hear that a lot when I read reviews. This book will definitely be one of those. It sets the tone for the whole book. Sometimes, it will seem as if you are jumping into the middle of a conversation where you wish you were there for the beginning of it. And if you are not up on the history of the pre-space and space programs, sometimes the technical portions of the flights might zip right over your head.

BUT I implore you to soldier on through some of this because the book just picks up steam from beginning to end and the end is worth it all.

This will likely be at the top of my best list for 2015.

A great companion book to "The Right Stuff"

The Right Stuff, it ain't,
Tedious, often depressing account of the life of a test pilot and early astronaut. Counted the pages till it was over.

Clearly, Johncock read a Cormac McCarthy book and wanted to try his hand at that style. Sparse in terms of writing style and also the usage of punctuation. He was perhaps, a bit too spartan in detail. I mean,

the two year old daughter dies early on

but I didn't care, at all. Maybe it says more about me than anything, but I have a feeling that it has something to do with how little there was in terms of characters.

The general plot of a test pilot turned NASA astronaut candidate was interesting enough. It's a semi-historical fiction type thing where Alan Shepherd, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, etc... make appearances and the protagonist (Jim Harrison) is kind of shoe horned into history. Harrison and his wife have a tragedy in their lives and this on top of what he's going through for NASA puts a strain on their relationship. It's all kind of cliche.

2.75 stars.