Mayday ! Mayday! Mayday! T.J. Newman returns after 2 years with another flight emergency! My love for aviation & the childlike fascination for airplanes made me pick this book unquestioned. I had quite enjoyed Newman’s debut novel Falling , though it wasn’t perfect. And I started this book with huge expectations.
Drowning has an extremely interesting plot that centres around a crash landing (in water), or more technically ditching. Two minutes into flight, Flight 1421’s engine explodes and barely 4 minutes later, it crashes into the ocean. And thereon, the book goes about the rescue operation and the various twists and turns that lay in between.
To start with, the author uses this 4 minute interval – between the engine catching fire and the plane ditching – to introduce the characters to the reader. The flight attendants, the captain, first officer and the prominent passengers who stay with us through the story. Honestly, it felt like a lot happening & a lot of detail for a 4-5 minute period and somewhat takes away the urgency from this alarming situation. As an alternative, I guess the book could have begun with passengers boarding the plane and being introduced along.
I might be a contrarian here, but the book didn’t work for me on several accounts. This is a perfect case of a plot with immense potential going bust due to mediocre handling. The biggest flaw in this book to me was the complete focus on the rescue operation. I think the rescue mission should have only been a part of the story rather than the entire story itself! After the plane crash, once the rescue on the site was done, they should have moved along swiftly to getting the trapped passengers evacuated & moved on. I would have wanted to see an investigation into the disaster. The story is so incomplete without any digging into the cause of the disaster and who was responsible. I would have loved to see the survivors & the victims’ families getting together to pursue justice & bring the people responsible to task! What a difference a crisp courtroom scene would have made!
Coming to the rescue plans, I found them quite weird actually. And, no offense meant, but they were ridiculous. The whole situation is trivialised by suggesting such kiddish solutions to such a grave situation. It actually felt as if they are dealing with a toy plane & not a jumbo jet! Like, at whim they can just tail down a gigantic plane from vertical to horizontal position, all but tipped on a cliff! Then, the whole idea of a civilian working on such an intricate machinery, in such short notice – and of course getting it right in the first go! Add to it that annoying air bubble of theirs hah! All that the passengers are surviving on is the air bubble that couldn’t escape after the water gushed in. All this points to the lack of realism & believability. It just never feels realistic enough to experience that anxiety, fear & anticipation – what you expect with such a premise.
The book was also over-burdened with technical stuff, almost feeling like a textbook at places. As a result, it didn’t make for an easy, smooth read. And it just gets better! The name choices have been unique here. Even till the end, I was struggling to remember who between that old couple Ira & Ruth is the man & who the woman! And Chris for Will’s wife.
The emotional scenes seem forced and fail to create the desired impact. That whole Titanic thing running between Ira and Ruth; Will and Chris salvaging their marriage in the midst of the mission, 200 meters down the ocean – they seem stuffed in just to add that touch but feel disconnected. Come to that scene when they do what they did with Ira’s body – it was totally gross and what the author herself calls it -macabre.
The book does have it’s moments though. One particular scene that I particularly enjoyed was when Chris argues with Fitz & Larson to let her work on the SRDRS. It was crisp & effective. Also, when the passengers are first discovered and the camera shows them wearing huge smiles was a nice touch. The two little girls are sure to win your hearts with their innocent yet matured reactions.
Conclusion
Drowning has been getting rave reviews across various sites as Goodreads and Amazon. So surely there must be something good about it. It however didn’t work for me – maybe due to different expectations. It is a passable read, not one of the best of 2023 though.