{"id":175,"date":"2021-12-07T10:58:59","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T15:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/?page_id=175"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:24:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T22:24:23","slug":"the-guide-to-the-flying-island","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/novellas\/the-guide-to-the-flying-island\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guide to the Flying Island"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-normal-font-size\">LEE UPTON<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-normal-font-size\"><br>2008 NOVELLA PRIZE SELECTED BY JOSEPH BATES<br>2009. 9781607435716 <br>$15.00 <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/books\/the-guide-to-the-flying-island-a-novella\/9781607435716\">Bookshop<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Guide-Flying-Island-Lee-Upton\/dp\/1607435713\">Amazon<\/a> | Pathway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Off the coast of the small town of Truror is an island steeped in local legend, a place once home to mysterious religious orders and apocryphal lost settlements\u2026a place that seems, in the right fog, to lift right out of the water and fly. This peculiar past has made the island, in the present, a minor tourist attraction, drawing sightseers and the devout alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On an otherwise routine tour, Jake Isinglass, a native son of Truror and guide to the island, witnesses something he can\u2019t explain: a young woman falls from an island cliff to her death\u2026or jumps to her death\u2026or vanishes into thin air. What follows in Jake\u2019s investigation finds him uncovering not just the island\u2019s difficult history but his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Written in evocative, atmospheric prose,&nbsp;<em>The Guide to the Flying Island<\/em>&nbsp;is at once a ghost story, a mystery, and a meditation on the ways our lives remain haunted by the secrets of our pasts.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-normal-font-size\">Reviews &amp; Such<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Read the January 2010 review of&nbsp;<em>The Guide to the Flying Island<\/em>&nbsp;on&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bookslut.com\/fiction\/2010_01_015670.php\" target=\"_blank\">Bookslut<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Lee Upton has long been one of my favorite poets and now, with&nbsp;<em>The Guide to the Flying Island<\/em>, she\u2019s become one of my favorite fiction writers, too. This is a beautifully written, one-of-a-kind book, a spooky, lovely novella about tour guides and missing nuns and monks, a wry and deeply felt story of love and obsession (if there\u2019s a difference). I couldn\u2019t put it down, and once I\u2019d finished it, I couldn\u2019t wait to read it again.<br><strong>\u2014Brock Clarke<\/strong>, author of&nbsp;<em>An Arsonist\u2019s Guide to Writers\u2019 Homes in New England<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Carrying the Torch<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Lee Upton\u2019s&nbsp;<em>The Guide to the Flying Island<\/em>&nbsp;is a carefully nuanced enchantment which unfolds in the community around an isolated island chapel and on the threshold between the psychological and the metaphysical. As I watched Jake Isinglass attempt to unravel the mysteries of a missing nun and the loss of his mother, I was captivated by the mist-filled maritime setting and the enigmatic behavior of locals and pilgrims. Any fan of&nbsp;<em>Picnic at Hanging Rock<\/em>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<em>The Magus<\/em>&nbsp;will be spellbound by Upton\u2019s deft prose and compelling characters.<br><strong>\u2014R.T. Smith<\/strong>, author of&nbsp;<em>Faith<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Uke Rivers Delivers<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-normal-font-size\"><br>About the Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Lee Upton is the author of fourteen books, including&nbsp;<em>Visitations: Stories;<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Bottle the Bottles the Bottles the Bottles: Poems;<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>The Tao of Humiliation: Stories<\/em>. Her seventh poetry collection,&nbsp;<em>The Day Every Day Is<\/em>, received the 2021 Saturnalia Prize and is forthcoming in 2023. Her awards include the Open Book Award from the Cleveland State University Poetry Center; the Lyric Poetry Award and The Writer\/Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America; the Pushcart Prize; and the National Poetry Series Award.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized is-style-default\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"960\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2021\/12\/flying_island-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-176\" style=\"width:450px;height:720px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2021\/12\/flying_island-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2021\/12\/flying_island-1-188x300.jpg 188w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized is-style-default\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"756\" height=\"803\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2022\/03\/Lee-Upton-2022-for-MU.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-864\" style=\"width:450px;height:450px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2022\/03\/Lee-Upton-2022-for-MU.jpg 756w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2022\/03\/Lee-Upton-2022-for-MU-282x300.jpg 282w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/files\/2022\/03\/Lee-Upton-2022-for-MU-600x637.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 756px) 100vw, 756px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LEE UPTON 2008 NOVELLA PRIZE SELECTED BY JOSEPH BATES2009. 9781607435716 $15.00 Bookshop | Amazon | Pathway Off the coast of the small town of Truror is an island steeped in local legend, a place once home to mysterious religious orders and apocryphal lost settlements\u2026a place that seems, in the right fog, to lift right out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":995,"featured_media":0,"parent":23,"menu_order":17,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-175","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/995"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1343,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/175\/revisions\/1343"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/miami-university-press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}