The Book from the Sky

"I'm on my way back. I was one of the first they took away."

So begins Robert Kelly's remarkable science fiction novel about a literally divided self. I is Billy, the book's protagonist, a boy who is captured by a group of aliens who take him to a cave and meticulously, if seemingly by caprice, remove his young pure smokeless lungs and other internal organs to replace them with two gray squirrels, a live hawk, a shoe, and a variety of other bizarre objects. Billy's body and mind are spun off into a curious twin, one whose adventures Billy is forced by his captors to watch and try to make sense of — not a simple task when he sees his doppelganger stealing everything from him: body, name, family, his beloved Eileen.

Complicating matters, and forcing Billy deeper into his ironic journey of self, is a mysterious pamphlet called The Book from the Sky, written by what may be yet another variation of Billy himself, Brother William.

This stunningly imaginative work, echoing the late novels of Iris Murdoch and the fantasies of Robert Charles Wilson and Jonathan Stroud while remaining inimitably Kelly's own, offers adventurous readers a cabinet of wonders not unlike the body of his beleaguered young hero.

"All aboard...for an entertaining reimagining of the ancient theme of the double....whimsical and erudite, earthy and ethereal, a boy's space adventure comic book interleafed with a provocatively eccentric book of wisdom. Robert Coover, author of The Public Burning

"Kelly is a poet with a religio-mystic bent, for whom the cultic vistas of the universe are routine stops..." Marx Dorrity, Chronogram Magazine

"Alien abduction has always been the most intimate and insidious of 'supernatural' rumors....The reader longs to live in Kelly's book, as in a paradise restored." Carey Harrison, author of Freud: A Novel

“Im on my way back. I was one of the first they took away.” So begins Robert Kellys remarkable science fiction novel about a literally divided self. “I” is Billy, the books protagonist, a boy who is captured by a group of aliens who take him to a cave and meticulously, if seemingly by caprice, remove his “young pure smokeless lungs” and other internal organs to replace them with two gray squirrels, a live hawk, a shoe, and a variety of other bizarre objects. Billys body and mind are spun off into a curious twin, one whose adventures Billy is forced by his captors to watch and try to make sense of—not a simple task when he sees his doppelgänger stealing everything from him: body, name, family, his beloved Eileen. Complicating matters, and forcing Billy deeper into his ironic journey of self, is a mysterious pamphlet called “The Book from the Sky,” written by what may be yet another variation of Billy himself, Brother William. This stunningly imaginative work, echoing the late novels of Iris Murdoch and the fantasies of Robert Charles Wilson and Jonathan Stroud while remaining inimitably Kellys own, offers adventurous readers a “cabinet of wonders” not unlike the body of his beleaguered young hero.

A prominent figure in American letters since the late 1950s, Robert Kelly has published over 50 books, including 10 novels, and has won the American Book Award and other prizes for his work. His writing has appeared in Conjunctions and other literary magazines. A teacher at Bard College, he lives in Red Hook, NY.