The stories in Merrill Feitell?s award-winning collection, Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes, examine the fleeting and unexpected moments of human connection, reminding us of the indelible impact we have on one another no matter how insignificant or anonymous we might feel under our huge, collective sky.

Feitell?s characters deal with shifting dynamics in relationships?whether they be best friends, lovers, family, or even strangers?that consistently leave them torn between two places or commitments. In the title story, Janie has undergone a painful childbirth experience and her group of friends must pioneer new dynamics while she wonders how to bring her old self back. In ?Bike New York!? amid thirty thousand cyclists, a man on the brink of marriage meets a young girl who, in a tiny Brooklyn bakery, affirms both who he has been and who he is going to be. On this short detour from normal life he comes to understand ?the funny thing about finding your way in the world. There was a place laid out for you . . . and even as you stepped into it, happy for the chance to rest, you wondered how you ever ended up there.?

Funny, big-hearted, and deft, Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes navigates the reader through the life that happens when you?re planning other things. It is a collection of experiences, roads not taken, and the intense and unforeseen sparks of connection we hope for.

"Feitell chronicles impulsive life decisions, crucial moments of self-reflection, lost loves and intimate connections in her skillful debut, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction award. In 'Bike New York!' an uncertain groom-to-be half-mistakenly flakes on his friends' planned bike-a-thon/pub crawl/bachelor party, only to find himself peddling along with a teenage girl whose hopeful youth sparks a 'shift in lighting, a re-alignment of compositions as he slipped from the point of focus in his own life.' In the poignant 'The Marrying Kind,' a woman on the eve of her 33rd birthday endures the nuptials of her college love — who also happens to be the father of her unborn child. The gem here is the delightful 'Our Little Lone Star,' in which a slightly neurotic 62-year-old woman's encounter with 'some kind of cowboy' inspires her to stop living a life of regret. There are some slight missteps: the familiar Thanksgiving meet-the-parents theme and a few heavy-handed metaphors weaken 'It Couldn't Be More Beautiful,' while 'Such a Big Mr. England' relies too heavily on its frame of Princess Diana's death at the cost of developing more fully the character of a memorabilia collector watching his son slip away to a cold daughter-in-law. But the collection as a whole boasts confident, astute prose as Feitell explores life's surprising moments with generosity and truth. (Oct.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"It's not hard to see why Matthew Klam, himself a master at capturing love's double-edged sword, chose this spirited collection as the winner of the 2004 Iowa Short Fiction Award. Like Klam's debut, Sam the Cat (Random House, 2000), Feitell's is hip and funny, but it's more varied and more subtle, presenting a range of voices — young and old, male and female, married and single — that ask for more from themselves and from the world. Each of the eight stories takes place within a single, focused event — Thanksgiving, a bike race, a birthday party. This formula makes for a strong, distinctive style, and also for a stage on which lifetimes of hope and doubt are played out — the stories may be small in frame, but they're vast in scope. In “It Couldn't Be More Beautiful,” the wise, wise-cracking fourteen-year-old narrator mourns the loss of her older sister to a boyfriend, craving at the end of the story “the warmth of her undivided affections.” In “And Then You Stand Up,” a professor scarred by a car accident caused by her “overdue and botched clamoring for love” gains unexpected perspective from her best friend's eleven-year-old daughter, who has entered puberty overnight. In “The Marrying Kind,” a woman attends the wedding of her ex-boyfriend, who on their recent “funnymoon” has gotten her pregnant. The narrator, like the characters in several of these stories, is confounded by the traditional contours of the married life, unable and unwilling to commit to it, yet persistently haunted by its allure. “How can you make a decision for the rest of your life,” she asks, “if you're not even sure you've yet become the person you'll always want to be?” In a blurb on the back cover, Antonya Nelson applauds, “Merrill Feitell loves her characters even if they don't love themselves.” But what's most endearing and true about Feitell's characters is that they do love themselves — they're people who care deeply about their lives, who struggle passionately to align them with their own ideal visions of happiness. In love with some moment in their pasts or their futures, they hold out for something better, even when something better doesn't look like it's coming." Reviewed by Eleanor Henderson, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)

?Rueful, bittersweet, funny, written with tenderness and bite, Merrill Feitell?s stories, like so many classic short stories, are made from the plain and painful stuff of this world, and haunted by the possibility, and the impossibility, of a better one.? Michael Chabon

?This award-winning display is a saucy, vibrant collection, both timely and timeless. These stories never disappoint ? they are funny, unpredictable, skillfully honed, and very moving. Merrill Feitell loves her characters even if they don?t love themselves, and that makes for a rich, impressive debut.? Antonya Nelson, author of Female Trouble

?Merrill Feitell?s stories are keenly observant: they show us the almost invisible gestures people engage in at those moments when their emotions are about to seize up. She writes beautifully and unsentimentally about the kindness strangers can sometimes, and unexpectedly, show each other. This is a fine and wonderful collection.? Charles Baxter

?Merrill Feitell?s charming stories nicely balance the longings of the single life with its triumphs. Her characters are a delight, and the pages resonate with humor, generosity, love, loss, and that elusive sense of the world truly spinning beneath our feet.? Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever and Servants of the Map

The stories in Merrill Feitell's award-winning collection, Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes, examine the fleeting and unexpected moments of human connection, reminding us of the indelible impact we have on one another no matter how insignificant or anonymous we might feel under our huge, collective sky. Feitell's characters deal with shifting dynamics in relationships--whether they be best friends, lovers, family, or even strangers--that consistently leave them torn between two places or commitments. In the title story, Janie has undergone a painful childbirth experience and her group of friends must pioneer new dynamics while she wonders how to bring her old self back. In "Bike New York!" amid thirty thousand cyclists, a man on the brink of marriage meets a young girl who, in a tiny Brooklyn bakery, affirms both who he has been and who he is going to be. On this short detour from normal life he comes to understand "the funny thing about finding your way in the world. There was a place laid out for you... and even as you stepped into it, happy for the chance to rest, you wondered how you ever ended up there." Funny, big-hearted, and deft, Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes navigates the reader through the life that happens when you're planning other things. It is a collection of experiences, roads not taken, and the intense and unforeseen sparks of connection we hope for.