A couple of years ago, my daughter—a recently graduated English major with an impeccable track record for book recommendations—suggested that I read Dear Edward. It took me a while to make it happen, but while we traveled together last holiday season, she glanced over mid-flight and was startled to see me reading her recommended novel about a plane crash while we were navigating multiple legs of our own air travel. I understood her concern. I even surprised myself by becoming so absorbed in Ann Napolitano’s captivating story of a flight from Newark to Los Angeles gone tragically wrong. And yet, the book turned out to be an unexpectedly comforting companion up in the air.
As so many of us prepare for holiday travel—a season when airports are crowded, flights are packed, and stress can spike—it feels like the right moment to revisit this beautiful novel that manages to hold both the vulnerability and the wonder of flying.
Dear Edward toggles between two narratives. One follows a fictional morning flight from Newark to LA, filled with 183 passengers and an unforgettable assortment of characters: an ailing billionaire, a tongue-pierced teen who discovers she’s pregnant while testing in the plane’s cramped bathroom, a woman in a jingle skirt leaving her husband to embrace a rollerblading reinvention, a gay soldier struggling with his identity, a conceited econ bro, and an impossibly glamorous flight attendant. At the center is the Adler family—Bruce, a math professor recently denied tenure; Jane, a successful but frustrated writer; Jordan, a vegan teen missing his first love; and 12-year-old Edward.
The flight scenes are intimate, humorous, and instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever squeezed past a sleeping seatmate or balanced a cup of coffee while turbulence ripples overhead. Napolitano captures the strange blend of excitement, discomfort, and communal closeness that defines air travel—especially during the holidays, when strangers from every corner of life find themselves sharing the same small patch of sky.
The second narrative begins in the hospital after the crash and traces Edward’s disoriented path through traumatic grief. His aunt and uncle—John and Lacey—are suddenly thrust into parenting after years of infertility and little experience raising children. They find themselves caring for a boy who is both deeply wounded and newly famous, the lone survivor in a tragedy the world is watching. Edward’s healing unfolds slowly with the support of neighbors, school staff, a coach, and a grounded, compassionate therapist who helps him metabolize a loss that will never fully heal.
Sibling bonds course through both plotlines. Edward wears his older brother’s clothes long after they no longer fit. And one of the novel’s most achingly tender moments comes when his aunt tries to comfort him in a way that mirrors his mother’s affection:
Edward nods and is surprised that as she leaves the kitchen, she bends down and kisses his cheek… He sees—and feels—two separate realities… She kisses his cheek the way his mother had kissed him when she was alive… But she also kisses his cheek the way Lacey would have kissed the baby she had so badly wanted… The word cherish enters his brain as if on a foreign breeze and then departs.
In her acknowledgments, Napolitano shares that Dear Edward drew inspiration from several real events, including the 2010 crash of Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771—where a 9-year-old boy was the sole survivor—and Air France Flight 447, as well as a 2011 Popular Mechanics article. She also notes the influence of observing the deep bond between her own two sons, a thread that gives the novel its emotional heartbeat.
Dear Edward is ultimately a story about loss, survival, and the way community helps us carry what feels unendurable. Perhaps that is why, even with its central tragedy, the novel became for me a surprisingly grounding presence while flying.
If you’re heading into holiday travel this season—and can tolerate the irony—this beautiful, humane book may be the perfect companion at 30,000 feet.