The New York Times Book Review - Claire Vaye Watkins
…Riley has a stylish grasp of setting as the axis of place and time, writing about the era with captivating authority, palpable texture and a sure-footed knack for rebuilding a moment out of its pop detritus. Enthusiasts of '70s music and literature will tumble into delightful pockets of nostalgia. Celebrity cameos in fiction are often too winky for my taste, but they are striking and darkly resonant in Fly Me. A Manson Family member's house is the newest Sela landmark, disciples of Jim Jones proselytize on the glittering beach and the perfectly preened stews must perform their corporate femininity even during a hijacking. Ultimately, Riley's vividly realized setting and Suzy's firecracker spirit collide in a surprising whiplash climax.
Publishers Weekly
04/24/2017
Flying the friendly skies in the 1970s was definitely an adventure, what with all those skyjackings, as Riley demonstrates in his first novel. Suzy Whitman is a stew working out of Sela del Mar, a coastal community near L.A. The year is 1972, and Suzy, upon graduation from Vassar, has impulsively followed in the footsteps of her older sister, Grace, a stewardess with Grand Pacific Airlines whose husband, Mike, is a magazine writer who wants to be the next Tom Wolfe. Riley employs a Wolfean methodology in bringing to life the stoner vibe of the time through curated period details, marred by some anachronisms. While skateboarding on the 4th of July, Suzy meets Billy Zar, a local weed dealer, who tricks her into using her position with the airline to smuggle harder stuff for him. A family health crisis forces Suzy into a life of crime that, in the end, leaves her with only one desperate way out. Throw in Jim Jones’s nascent religious cult and a backstory involving Scientology, and the result is an overstuffed novel that reads like the fictional equivalent of Brendan I. Koerner’s study of the ’70s skyjacking phenomenon, The Skies Belong to Us. (June)
From the Publisher
One of the Best Books of the Summer - Marie Claire, Publishers Weekly, Goop, PopSugar
"Riley conjures a Technicolor vision of seventies California and casts Suzy's ambition as a feminist quest for self-determination. Her exploits build to a climax that suggests the book's title is not so much an invitation as a challenge."—The New Yorker
"Riley has a stylish grasp of setting as the axis of place and time, writing about the era with captivating authority, palpable texture and a sure-footed knack for rebuilding a moment out of its pop detritus. Enthusiasts of '70s music and literature will tumble into delightful pockets of nostalgia...Ultimately, Riley's vividly realized setting and Suzy's firecracker spirit collide in a surprising whiplash climax."—The New York Times Book Review
"Fly Me, by Daniel Riley... knocked my shoes off. I wasn't expecting any of it.... The surprises in the last 50 pages made the whole book exciting.... [Suzy Whitman] is capable of anything... She's taking liberation beyond the boundaries you'd expect."—Michael Silverblatt, National Public Radio's KCRW
"An excellent time capsule of '70s nostalgia, capturing that devil-may-care beach-culture vibe."—Marie Claire
"A stunning and dangerous ride set in the skies of 1972... Throughout Fly Me, Riley paints a seductive and psychologically intense picture of the times, combining political change, sex, drugs, and a painful coming of age with the idyllic backdrop of a Pacific paradise."—Interview
"One of the summer's freshest novels... Suzy Whitman, like Cher and Elle before her, is a classic California Girl. She explores, she subverts, and despite her tireless chorus of critics, she always finds a way back to herself."—Refinery29
Fly Me "is a vibrant, pitch-perfect rendering of decadent beachside youth culture, with its surfing, drugs, rock 'n' roll, and all-day parties.... It's a well-plotted, tension-filled novel that shows how the curiosity and invincibility of youth might cause an innocent (if tough) young woman to drift into the underworld... Riley keenly portrays the confusion and frustration of youth."—Los Angeles Review of Books
"Fly Me... is a story about people moving around in a self-imposed haze—knowing, on some level, that it can't last, but wanting to stretch it out as long as they can anyway... Almost every page of the book made me think of Lana Del Rey."—Stereogum
"What a trip this novel is... It's Riley's debut novel and it's the perfect balance of grit and gloss."—Publishers Weekly
"Fascinating, intense, and passionately told, at times reminding us of another coming-of-age story, Emma Cline's The Girls... You'll be hard-pressed to put this one down."—Goop
"Riley has conjured up impeccable West Coast period atmosphere."—Kirkus
"Daniel Riley writes like he's skipping stones-with a beautifully light touch, perfect precision, and something that feels a lot like magic."—Gin Phillips, author of Fierce Kingdom and The Well and the Mine
"Suzy Whitman, Fly Me's central figure, is one of the most compelling and beautifully realized characters I've read in many a moon. And she inhabits an era-the seventies-that has much to say to us in these parlous times of ours. This is a dazzling debut by an important new novelist."—Robert Olen Butler, author of Perfume River
"Daniel Riley's Fly Me conjures the feeling of a long-passed decade in living color, flesh and bone-redolent with risk and possibility. This riveting novel is a window into a world we've all forgotten we come from."—Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls' Rising
"Standing right at the corner of Don Winslow and Exile on Main Street, Daniel Riley conjures something remarkable-an unerring fusion of contemporary white-knuckle thriller and rawly elegant period piece, set at the moment the Vietnam-era counterculture cracked open wide enough to fly a skyjacked plane through. If scintillating writing and Hitchcockian dread weren't enough, Riley also gives us Suzy Whitman, a classical heroine thrust by history and circumstance into the dangerous territory of modern autonomy, with uncharted modern consequences. Absolutely first-rate. I loved this book."—Malcolm Brooks, author of Painted Horses
"With thin, wild mercury rhythms and electrifying prose, Daniel Riley's debut announces the arrival of a masterful novelist, giving flashes of Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Dana Spiotta, even a glint of Thomas Pynchon. Fly Me does for seventies L.A. what Garth Risk Hallberg did for New York City in the same period. This is one to gulp down, and then savor."—Daniel Torday, author of The Last Flight of Poxl West
"Fly Me is a vivid, virtuosic novel. Daniel Riley conjures a place and time as vibrant and compelling as the embattled young woman at the heart of this story."—Scott O'Connor, author of Half World
"Fly Me digs under the endless summer sand of Southern California to confirm what every young person suspects: the world is a conspiracy. I cheered as Riley's heroine, Suzy, broke free from the sinister forces controlling her destiny to chart her own crazy flight plan."—Jeffrey Rotter, author of The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering
Library Journal
04/15/2017
Suzy Whitman was a born risk taker. This trait, nurtured by her dad with his love of fast cars, led Suzy from building go-karts at the age of ten to racing the junior circuit at Watkins Glen, NY. Unlike her prettier but aimless older sister, Grace, Suzy excelled in school. While Grace became an airline stewardess, Suzy sailed through her first three years as an English major at Vassar. On the strength of that success, she was selected to complete her senior year at Yale, where she fell short for the first time by failing required science courses. Shocked and feeling defeated, Suzy follows the newly married Grace across the country to the beach town of Sela del Mar, CA, and joins Grace's airline as a stewardess. The year is 1972, and Sela del Mar, a haven for drifters living loosely on the fringes, offers a heady, endless summer of music, alcohol, and drugs. Open to new experiences and adventure, Suzy flirts with danger and falls into a drug courier role. What starts as a lark turns serious when her adored father cannot afford the cancer treatment that could save his life. VERDICT Like some commercial airline trips, this first novel rambles along on the runway, finally takes off with a blast, detours a bit here and there, but proves to be a stimulating ride.—Sheila M. Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC
Kirkus Reviews
2017-03-21
Suzy is a stewardess, a skateboarder, a race car driver, a Vassar graduate…and now a drug mule.It's 1972 in the California beach town of Sela del Mar, where the favorite bumper sticker is "Sela vie" and most roads end at the beach. Close enough to LAX to see the lights of the planes, the village is home to many a houseful of "stews," as they were called back then. Among them are Grace and Suzy Whitman, good-looking sisters from upstate New York who now work for Grand Pacific airlines, and aspiring magazine journalist Mike Singer, Grace's secret husband (among many draconian regulations, stews were not allowed to marry). The first friend Suzy makes in her new town is a blond local named Billy Zar. "What do you do?" she asks. "I'm a pawn in a multinational outfit that specializes in drug running," he replies. He's not kidding, Suzy learns, when she finds a flour sack filled with contraband in her carry-on on her next flight to New York, along with instructions for its delivery. Suzy is no weenie—she drove race cars in high school and is about to start taking flying lessons. She also has a family crisis that could benefit from an infusion of cash. So one bad choice leads to another and finally to a wildly unforeseen resolution in which debut novelist Riley drives his fuel-injected plot right into the bleachers. Riley has conjured up impeccable West Coast period atmosphere—salt air, cocaine, Vuarnets—but despite his relentless commitment to depicting his stewardess's inner life, she's more a fantasy than a real character.
