Gentlemen of Space Book

Building on the traditions of Cheever, DeLillo, and Ford, comes a striking first novel that shuttles readers into the twenty-first century with a cracked-world look at the end of the Space Age. Magnolia Court is not the most magical place in Florida, but to young Georgie Finch, this outsized housing project in the heart of the suburbs is the center of the universe. In this superbly crafted and imaginative novel, Georgie tells the story of when his father, Jerry, won a competition in 1976 to become the first civilian man on the moon. He describes his beautiful babysitter who has a crush on Jerry; his Jackie O-like mother Barbara, the long-suffering wife to an everyday genius; Jerry s high-school friend, Lyle Barnes, running for local office on his coattails; and the mysterious journalist Bob Nightly, who seems to be the only person determined to get to the bottom of who Jerry Finch really is. Once Jerry is shot into space, Magnolia Court turns into the worst sort of American media circus, replete with card tables, Winnebagos, cookouts, and telescopes. Georgie tentatively navigates this scene, dodging the starstruck commoners who have come to worship at the astronauts feet. Suddenly Jerry goes missing, and the camp turns into a vigil, punctuated by potluck suppers and banners. When the astronauts come back without Jerry, even they descend on Magnolia Court in their spacesuits to show their respect. All the while Georgie gets phone calls from his father in space, but no one will believe him. Should we? Or is his entire story just that, a story? Gentlemen of Space is a bold and inventive novel that heralds the arrival of a remarkable talent.

About the Author

Ira Sher s short fiction has been published in The Chicago Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Gulf Coast, and has been a finalist for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Mystery Stories. He lives in New York City.

Publishers Weekly

Sher's whimsical, elegiac debut novel is about a boy whose father is chosen, in the summer of 1976, to be the first civilian on the moon. The ascent of Jerry Finch-a quixotic Florida junior high school earth science teacher-into the heavens is part of a NASA-sponsored program to revive flagging public interest in space exploration. Narrator Georgie Finch, who was nine years old at the time, recalls the strain that his father's selection brought to the family, as Georgie's skeptical mother, Barbara ("the moon... is a veritable palace of idiots"), tries to suppress her worry about the trip. During the week and a half that Jerry is in space, strange things begin to happen: Georgie receives several phone calls from his father, telling him what it's like in space. Barbara learns that their 16-year-old babysitter, Angie, has been having an affair with Jerry and is now pregnant. And then, Jerry disappears. Georgie, his mother and their town become the center of a media spectacle. The public soon learns of Jerry's affair with the teenager, and Barbara is forced into the role of Jackie O.-style celebrity widow. And while the world's attention is focused on the moon and the search for Jerry, Georgie continues receiving phone calls from his father, who tries to explain to Georgie the mystical nature of the moon and the special connection he feels to it. Sher lets these enigmatic communications-which everyone assumes are Georgie's grief-stricken fantasies-stand without comment, as Georgie himself reflects on the vagaries of memory and the difficulty of sorting out truth and fiction. The novel is an original, haunting twist on a story of childhood loss. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.