Tom Bodett

The Freefall of Webster Cummings
When trying to classify “The Freefall of Webster Cummings,” the reader will have a hard time distinguishing it. The book is really funny and very witty, but it also has a very serious and sentimental edge. It is mostly driven by its characters. It is hardly realistic, but it never quite stretches into fantasy, as all the events, while incredibly improbable, are possible.

Through the first few chapters, the book introduces over 5 parallel stories featuring show more different characters that seem to have never met. Throughout each of their stories the author slowly develops these characters, most importantly often pointing out a flaw of theirs or a conflict in their life. Starting with the centerpiece characters, the book introduces Ed Flannigan, a witty, cynical, one-armed man with a way of pointing out the downside of everything with his jokes, Webster Cummings, who never knew his family but was called the luckiest man alive for his incredible survival of falling off a plane, and Oliver, a homeless man who oddly enough seems to be the most content with his life. Other interesting and quirky characters add extra humor and charisma, with such as the Bedfinger-Hooples, a married couple who ended up living thousands of miles away from each other because they felt their jobs were too important and some incredibly exaggeratedly strange characters that are friends of Oliver, the homeless man. These extras really help bring the story together, even if they are not involved in its major events. The reader soon learns that all of these characters, whether important or not, have a hole of some sorts in their lives that they are trying desperately to fill one way or another. It is usually this very thing that leads the characters to each other. In particular, Webster’s search for his family leads him to the Flannigans, because they are actually fairly close relatives of his.
Through a couple of intentionally ridiculously exaggerated (but well written) and even almost superhuman events, all of these characters are tied together, either through a relationship they did not know they had or simply coincidental circumstances. By the time Webster discovers that Ed Flannigan was his unknown cousin, an old gypsy they met was his unknown mother, and Oliver, the old, happy city tramp was his unknown father the story is hardly believable at all.
However, if this book’s exaggerated story is what the reader remembers the most from this book, then the reader did not take from it what he was supposed to. The most important aspect of this book is the well crafted characters and plot line, with the exaggerated events only acting as supplements to keep the reader interested. Although the book sometimes suffers from its own ambition to introduce so many characters at once and try to find a solution for all of them, Bodett succeeds with such a difficult undertaking better than anyone else could. With the help of a slightly fantasized plot and set of characters, Bodett delivers one of the funniest, quirkiest, and yet most sincere books I have read in a long time. show less

Bodett's strength is his humor. This is written as a drama, lacking that wonderful slyness in all his previous books. I know he can manage it along with drama, as he did in Norman Tuttle. So I'm wondering why the miss.

I might be more forgiving if it were another, less talented author.
The story itself was interesting enough and the climax scene had me breathless with anxiety.

I've read and hugely enjoyed some of Bodett's other titles, especially his fiction, so I was a bit let down by this, his first published collection of essays. Fleetingly entertaining, I suppose, as would be appropriate for radio. His other End of the Road books deal much more with the neighbors and denizens, and I think that's where he shines. I can let this copy go, as I won't re-visit it.

Bodett has really caught the brother/sister relationship here, great characterization. Several times he gives us entry into September's thoughts and then segues into her younger brother Ivan's thoughts--which are so different in mood. These kids, ages 12 & 13, have a strong sense of values (being truthful, responsible, hard-working)but reached a time when they chose to act against that. This book is the story of the escalating consequences.
I couldn't understand why September never went into show more the electronics repair shop with her brother, nor why the harbor master, who had years of experience, didn't try to keep them at the safe berth when he saw the storm coming. I'm glad that the reasoning behind the maxim "Red Sky at night, sailor's ..." was finally explained. show less