ECU Libraries Catalog

Air traffic : a memoir of ambition and manhood in America / Gregory Pardlo.

Author/creator Pardlo, Gregory author.
Format Book and Print
EditionFirst edition.
Publication Info New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2018.
Copyright Notice ©2018
Descriptionx, 253 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm
Subject(s)
Contents An introduction: Rt. 66 -- The up-to-daters club -- Student union -- Loser -- What is your quest? -- Air traffic -- The minority business consortium -- Cartography -- A moving violation -- Marine boy -- The wreck of the conquest -- He ain't heavy -- "Hurrah for Schoelcher!" -- Colored people's time -- Private school -- Tolle, Lege -- Behind the wheel -- The strip -- On Intervention.
Abstract "From the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, his first work of prose: a deeply felt memoir of a family's bonds and a meditation on race, addiction, fatherhood, ambition, and American culture The Pardlos were an average, middle-class African American family living in a New Jersey Levittown: charismatic Gregory Sr., an air traffic controller, his wife, and their two sons, bookish Greg Jr. and musical-talent Robbie. But when "Big Greg" loses his job after participating in the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Strike of 1981, he becomes a disillusioned, toxic, looming presence in the household--and a powerful rival for young Greg. While Big Greg succumbs to addiction and exhausts the family's money, Greg Jr. rebels--he joins a boot camp for prospective Marines, follows a woman to Denmark, drops out of college again and again, and yields to alcoholism. Years later, he falls for a beautiful, no-nonsense woman named Ginger and becomes a parent himself. Then, he finally grapples with the irresistible yet ruinous legacy of masculinity he inherited from his father. In chronicling his path to recovery and adulthood--Gregory Pardlo gives us a compassionate, loving ode to his father, to fatherhood, and to the frustrating-yet-redemptive ties of family, as well as a scrupulous, searing examination of how African American manhood is shaped by contemporary American life"-- Provided by publisher.
Issued in other formOnline version: Pardlo, Gregory. Air traffic. First edition. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2018 9781524731779
Genre/formNonfiction.
Genre/formAutobiographies.
Genre/formAutobiographies.
LCCN 2017047413
ISBN9781524731762 (hardcover)
ISBN1524731765 (hardcover)
ISBN9780525432210 (paperback)
ISBN0525432213 (paperback)

Available Items

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Joyner General Stacks PS3616 .A737 Z46 2018 ✔ Available Place Hold