The Wonder Book of the Air leads us through the lives of three generations in a Southern family.

At the center is Harrison Durrance, who learns early that the nature of love is both transaction and transgression. As a young man he comes into his own during World War II, where he falls for the magic of flight and thrives on the danger of battle. He has become a man of undeniable magnetism, brash and vigorously optimistic. But when the war is over and he is back on the ground - in cold-war America - Harrison loses his bearings and catapults out of orbit.

As his notions of the world begin to fail him and the people he claims to love fail to understand him, he sabotages his career, drinks to excess, and drives his family into emotional bedlam. But the story is not Harrison's alone.

1. In Cynthia Shearer's arresting vision, the turbulence Harrison creates is woven into a canvas that captures the seismic shifts of history, of change, of forces that we try to name to protect ourselves from their randomness. In the wake of Harrison's terrifying-and-terrified behavior, we watch his children search for hope in the emotional wreckage and find some understanding of solace, compassion, and love.