“A woman takes a road trip through the South with
her estranged father, trailed by a rogue sheriff bent on revenge. The
author’s style, rich with unforced detail, expertly conjures very
different places—the
sour air in a den where men have been gambling for days, the muddy,
punishing waters of the
Mississippi, the cool veranda of an antebellum building—and she crafts
characters with the same meticulous attention. Ellie Moon is a young
woman who can’t remember her childhood,but feels haunted by it all the
same. She misses her sister, long dead, and is subjected to the daily
verbal abuse of her mother, Louise, who taunts her for being divorced
and remaining unemployed in order to write. After a card game gone
awry, the great gambler (and Ellie’s dad) Tiny Moon drugs his opponent
and steals his car. Unfortunately, the man is Sheriff Melvin Dover, a
brutal sort who wants Tiny dead after the humiliation. Tiny drops by
his daughter’s house, having surreptitiously kept track of her for the
20 years he’s been away. He fills her in on his predicament and
proposes that they hit the road together. Seeking an adventure, Ellie
accepts. During the journey, Tiny and Ellie form a close bond, despite
the distance between them: She is fond of her enthusiastic father and
the many characters that inhabit his life. But Tiny also disappoints,
leaving Ellie for days in order to sniff out the nearest big game.
Rand’s narrative has a captivating momentum, and she offers countless
subtle, appealing touches—Tiny’s addiction to expensive cigars, Dover’s
fetish for footwear.
"The author's
style, rich with unforced detail, expertly conjures very
different places…and she crafts characters with the same meticulous
detail.
An absorbing well-written novel about coming to terms with personal
demons."
-
S.W. Capps, author of Salmon Run
"Nel
Rand's soaring prose transports the reader over time and space like the
birds
of her Mississippi Flyway. With a voice that stirs echoes of
the river itself,
Rand weaves a flowing tale of hope, self-discovery, and forgiveness.
This is one
'road-trip' you can't afford to miss."
An absorbing well-written novel about coming to terms with personal
demons."
-
Review by Katerie Prior for Clarion Reviews
"Ellie
is a woman who has always had difficulty being what others want her to
be: the thin daughter, the good Catholic school student, the supportive
sibling, a society reporter, the doctor’s wife. Ellie can’t remember
much about her early life, but she does remember wanting to be an owl—a
desire left over from her childhood days as a volunteer bird counter.
That’s not much help for Ellie who now finds herself divorced at
thirty-one and feeling out of step with the world.
All that changes when Ellie’s estranged father,
Tiny, arrives on her
doorstep. On the lam after playing a crooked game of poker with a
corrupt sheriff, Tiny invites Ellie on a road trip with him. She
accepts his offer and soon, father and daughter are on a journey, not
just through America’s heartland, but to confront a dark past.
This journey comes to life in Mississippi
Flyaway because of
author Nel Rand’s ability to create a vivid world with her poetic
description. Early in the book, we see young Ellie as a Catholic school
girl whose “socks puddle around her ankles.” About a man who is
confused, she writes, “a veil of fog had lowered in front of his face.”
These flourishes are small, but they are sprinkled like seasoning
through the novel to create dramatic characters and locations.
The real strength of this book is the
relationship between Tiny and
Ellie. It’s evident from the beginning why father and daughter are
estranged; so clear, in fact, that some readers may initially balk that
Ellie agrees to leave with her father at all. But Rand has created
strong, compelling characters in Tiny and Ellie that make you want to
keep reading, keep rooting for them, even when you suspect that what
they have to face will not be pleasant.
Clearly, Mississippi Flyway is a book that
will keep readers
talking even after they’ve finished the story. A brief interview with
the author is included at the end of the novel, along with discussion
questions for book clubs. Even if you read it on your own, Mississippi
Flyway is book that is sure to stir up emotions."
-
George Evans, author of A Rose on Gallows Hill, Chastity Hoar, Georgy Porgy
"Mississippi Flyway is
a powerful work from first-time novelist Nel Rand. Like the innocent
Huck Finn
who rafts down the same river, learning as he goes, Ellie makes her own
journey,
meeting an assortment of unforgettable characters. The river carries
many secrets
and will divulge them only to the deserving. Readers who make and
complete this
journey with Ellie will find themselves similarly rewarded."
-
Review by Cherie Fisher for Reader Views
A compeling return to her past
"First time novelist Nel
Rand hits a home run with Mississippi
Flyway. The book caught my attention from the first page and
kept it right through to the last page. It is rich with Southern
culture and adventures along the Mississippi Flyway (the path along the
Mississippi River that birds fly each season). I honestly felt
like I was part of the adventure riding in the Bunny Bread truck with
Ellie Moon and her Dad, the not so “Tiny” Moon. I also completely
related to Ellie’s early life as a young Catholic child brought up on a
diet of good ole’ Catholic guilt!
The story begins with
scenes from Ellie’s childhood and the
traumatic experiences she endures that eventually lead to repressed
memories. Ellie’s early experiences, full of abuse, addiction and
the early death of her sister Rose, set her up for a lonely and empty
life as an adult.
Move forward to Saint
Louis in 1967 where Ellie is an unemployed,
recently divorced 31-year-old still being incessantly nagged by her
mother and you have a woman who is definitely ripe for an
adventure. That’s where her wanderer father, a notorious gambler
and conman, walks in after 20 years and offers to take Ellie on a road
trip. She quickly accepts and begins the adventure of a
lifetime.
The adventures for Ellie
happen on two levels – the trip where her
father is being pursued by the nasty piece of work, Sheriff Dover, and
the internal struggles that she has with her subconscious to remember
what happened to her as a child. I experienced a real sense of
the South as it was in 1967 as Ellie and Tiny are pursued by Dover to
Kentucky and gambling at Miss Ludine’s, onto the backwaters of the
Mississippi to an illegal moonshine distillery, to the wild eating
contest in colorful Memphis, concluding with a Voodoo ceremony in New
Orleans. All through this, Ellie is struggling with her feelings
about Tiny’s abandonment when she was a child, her sister Rose’s death
10 years earlier and the memories that are starting to resurface.
She realizes that it’s okay to let them out now because she is strong
enough to deal with it, and that she must face them to move on with her
life.“Mississippi Flyway” ends with Ellie learning just how much
compassion and forgiveness she is capable of.
I thoroughly enjoyed this
book and highly recommend it to anyone
looking for a great weekend read. But be forewarned, don’t pick
this up before bedtime and expect to go to sleep early.”
-
Andres Berger-Kiss, author of The Sharpener and Other Stories, Children of the Dawn
"Rand has the masterful ability to create
suspense through poetic description of the Mississippi basin."
-
Elizabeth Bunker, filmmaker, author of the documentaries Goose Hollow, Carie
"The author writes with care and a kind of visionary ease. For anyone who has ever
felt a disconnect with herself or her past this is necessary reading."
-
Reviewer Kevin Tipple for oncewritten.com
As adults, we often don't know what drives us through life and causes us to make the choices we make. It could be a vague memory of something that happened in our childhood past. An unspoken fear of something that happened but we aren't too sure what it was and why we feel so afraid. The memory was so hurtful it became submerged and though buried, still messes with the mind.
That dark memory may be seen as something else entirely by the parent. As something that happened and meant very little and yet for the child had a tremendous impact. Much like the yard that seemed so huge to the child until one goes back as an adult and looks that memory of the event may not have the import for the adult that it has for the child. That concept provides the underlying framework in this enjoyable read from author Nel Rand.
Its 1967 and thirty-one year-old Ellie Moon living in Saint Louis isn't happy. She is haunted by a past that she has tried to forget as well as by a mother who wants to control every single thing she does. Writing is what she loves along with gardening but she can't find solace in either. Especially when dear old Mom rolls in with her wheelchair and the aide of the moment to comment about everything Ellie has ever done.
Her father, known to one and all as Tiny, is at Kentucky Lake playing cards with a group of men. One of the men he has just met is Dover, the Sheriff of Caggway County who is trying to rip-off Tiny. It just isn't money Dover wants and Tiny knows that he has put himself in a bad place once again in his crooked life. He takes his chances and the breaks go his way and Tiny manages to steal from the Sheriff.
It's been years since Tiny has seen Ellie but he knows where she lives. Before long, he visits, convinces her to join him on a road trip. Left unspoken is the idea they both have that their trip is a chance for both of them to escape current reality as well as possibly an attempt at reconciliation. Their road trip meanders along as they work their way slowly southward to New Orleans while Dover continues a relentless chase to hunt down Tiny. As they travel and meet a host of characters engaged in various enterprises that may or not be illegal, Tiny and Ellie recover lost memories, dreams and hopes and forge a new relationship.
Through numerous flashbacks as well as present day events, author Nel Rand weaves a tale of pain and redemption that will strike a deep emotional chord for many readers. Obviously, every child is a product of their upbringing and both the good and the bad are handed down from one generation to the next. Understanding what parents went through as children themselves can go along way to healing as well as breaking the cycle.
Such a topic is never easy to write and the pain of the characters on both sides of the issue comes through clearly for the reader. The characters are complex and as they work their personal road to redemption, both literally and figuratively, the pain of the past they both shared and yet saw so differently comes through for the reader. These aren't stereotypical characters and that becomes clear early in the emotional read. The result is a cathartic read that is enjoyable and interesting while showcasing how peace and tranquility can be found for one family.