If our ancestors were informed that we could fly nearly seven miles above the ground, they would be astounded. However, air travel today is filled with complaints: it’s degrading, passengers lack manners, and even the peanuts that used to be free are now charged for. The skies are becoming less welcoming, especially in a year where Americans have faced tragic incidents in the air and the Federal Aviation Administration is facing budget cuts.
In the midst of this chaos comes „Sky Daddy,“ a unique novel by Kate Folk, a San Francisco author and screenwriter known for her short story collection „Out There.“ The protagonist, Linda, is a woman who seeks love, particularly from a commercial airplane in freefall. She believes it is her destiny for a plane to recognize her as his soulmate mid-flight and plummet to the earth in a passionate embrace.
Linda’s eccentricities go beyond the norm, finding pleasure in simulating aviation accidents and objectifying airplanes with terms like „testicular engines“ and „naughty landing gear shot.“ Despite her unusual desires, Linda’s character is more spiritual than symptomatic, defying easy categorization.
Folk’s inspiration for Linda came from a childhood encounter with a modified version of Moby-Dick, where she was struck by Ishmael’s experience of feeling a ghostly presence holding his hand. This supernatural element influenced Folk’s depiction of Linda’s obsession with airplanes, drawing parallels between humans trying to dominate nature in both her work and Melville’s classic.
Linda’s strict gendering of objects in her fantasy world, where planes are male and boats are female, reflects her unique perspective on sexuality. Unlike Ishmael and Ahab from Moby-Dick, Linda is a product of the internet age, fueling her obsession through online research and content moderation work in a tech company’s Hate & Harassment sector.
„Sky Daddy“ serves as a workplace novel, shedding light on the unseen labor of content moderators who filter out the internet’s darker content while receiving minimal pay and little recognition. Despite being written before recent plane crashes and FAA layoffs, the novel’s themes resonate with the current state of air travel and societal degradation.
In a country where human life is undervalued, air travel symbolizes a surrender of control, challenging the agentic American dream. Boarding a plane means accepting a fate beyond one’s control, a stark contrast to the belief in individual destiny that defines American identity. Ich muss einfach meinen Glauben in die Maschine setzen und auch in die Piloten und die Flugsicherung und alle, die daran arbeiten, sicherzustellen, dass der Flug sicher ans Ziel kommt.“