The Last Flight of Poxl West

The Last Flight of Poxl West by Daniel Torday is presented as a story within a story.  We meet Poxl West, now an elderly man who has found the family he never had in the children of his closest friend. He becomes the favored Uncle Poxl to young Eli Goldstein, a fifteen year old, who looks to Poxl as the epitome of a Jewish war hero.  His bravery makes him an idol for his teenage nephew, who spends time listening to stories of how he spent the war years flying in the cockpit of a Lancaster bomber.  Eli Goldstein and Poxl West explore museums and concerts always ending up at Cabots for ice cream as Eli listens to episodes that will be chapters of the book West is writing.  At last Poxl's book is being published.

Eli and his parents are there as Poxl reads from his book,   "And when he finally gave us what we wanted - and that audience wanted so much from Poxl West, the first Jew so many of us had heard of who had not only survived the Nazi threat but had combated it, literally - ..."

As the memoir, Skylock is published, Eli throws himself into reading the book multiple times and studying all things Poxl.  He is obsessed with Poxl and all he stands for.  The story alternates between Eli looking back at his life in 1986 as he goes to Hebrew School and interacts with his Rabbi and attends high school writing his history paper about Poxl and World War II.  Eli reflects on how Poxl West influenced and had a hold on his life.  The story within the story is that as a reader we are also reading Skylock, the memoir of Poxl West as he leaves his parents behind in Leitmeritz, Czechoslovakia, at first spending time in Rotterdam, Holland and then working in London for the rest of the war.  It is the story of his growing up as a Jewish young adult during the war years, his loves, his losses and his awakening as an adult.

Torday goes into wonderful detail about everything from the experience of living through the Blitz in London to the details of all the aircraft that Poxl flies during his flight school and during the bombing raids.  Using actual historical events such as the July, 1943 bombing of Hamburg, Germany known as Operation Gomorrah, Torday brings the story to life describing the feeling of being in the plane,  "I felt the lightening of our plane as our bomb load went down and we went up and below us was the obfuscating cloud of dense smoke."  He also describes in elaborate detail the experience of being in the bombings in London, as Poxl and his friends are working as rescue aid and nurses to help people as their homes are destroyed.  Torday makes the reader feel as if you are there with air raid sirens going off around you as you head for the shelters.  Also the emotional toll these events take on people and how they cope or escape.

Through it all Poxl has lost so many relationships due to the war.  He is plagued with feelings of guilt and thoughts of having run away from relationships never to see the people and make amends.  He has left his mother in a fit of passion not realizing that he will never see her again.  He has left women behind when he does not know how to negotiate the relationship not realizing he may never see them again.  As the war continues and his anger builds he needs to seek revenge on the enemy that is taking away the people in his life.  "What was there to drop on?  Bombs atop of bombs?  I thought of my mother, I thought of my father, and of Francoise, and though I chose not to speak, I might have said, 'Bomb until there is nothing left to bomb'".

A powerful story of the war and the relationships that were created and affected by what people experienced during that time.  Each of the relationships in this novel are beautifully fleshed out with all the tenderness of human interaction and all the human flaws of life.