Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder

An “original and haunting” novel about two wars and two generations of men (Minneapolis Star Tribune). Pensive in the wake of 9/11, a young man launches a mission to reunite his beloved grandfather, an American bombardier, with Luddie, the woman who saved him during WWII. Armed only with the address on the back of an old photograph and his grandfather’s memories, the young man begins writing letters to Luddie. Undaunted by her lack of response, the narrator travels to Poland with his girlfriend and grandfather. As they come closer to finding the site where the bombardier was shot down, the letters to Luddie become more personal—and the saga of a family with a long and storied history emerges. Beautifully orchestrated and eloquently original, this is a tale of soldiers and saviors, of burning and bombing, of fathers and sons and brothers and lovers—and of what we find when we dare to revisit the past. “A rewarding experience.” —Chicago Sun-Times “Nichols handles beautifully the hidden meanings in old family tales heard a hundred times . . . The novel often reads like a piece of music that is wonderfully original.” —Publishers Weekly “A dramatically off-kilter debut novel about wars and the men who fight them . . . We see the Bombardier, an elderly Rotarian and former mayor of a small Midwestern town, rediscovering his youthful memories. His grandson’s bewilderment over what to do about the 9/11 attacks highlights the differences between then and now. There’s a lot of meaty material here.” —Kirkus Reviews