Falling: A Novel

“Get to work, Bill ordered himself.

His hands stretched out in front of him.

Frozen.

Dammit, you’re the captain. You need to make a decision. You’re running out of time.”

Bill’s nightmare in the prologue is an example of the stress a pilot carries when facing a new flight. It is clear that Bill takes his responsibility as a leader seriously: as the pilot of a commercial aircraft, he is personally responsible for all the lives of the passengers on board. By opening with this manifestation of Bill’s anxiety, Newman gives insight into Bill’s character and foreshadows the events to come.

“‘We say it that way so that if we crash,’ he explained, ‘they know exactly how many bodies they’re looking for. Avoids the confusion of different titles like passengers, crew, infants. Just how many bodies, son. That’s all they need to know. Oh!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘And sometimes we carry dead bodies in the cargo hold so they need to know not to count them. So now, after you log in the souls…’”

Newman uses her extensive knowledge of airplanes to explain certain elements that are specific to flying. This particular element stresses the vulnerability of the people onboard a plane and the responsibility a pilot has. Newman thereby once again expresses Bill’s responsibility in assuring the people on the plane, not just passengers, but everyone, arrives at their destination unharmed. This statement gives a human element to the plot that is developing in this early chapter of the novel.

“Jaw clenched, Bill searched his bag. That’s how he got in the house and that’s how he got something onto the plane. He’d left the room when Bill came in the kitchen, that was when he put it in his bag. What was his name? Carrie had said it at one point. Bill couldn’t remember if he introduced himself or not.”

Moments after learning his family has been kidnapped, Bill begins putting together clues that explain how easy it was for a stranger to take control of his family. At the same time, he discovers that items were slipped into his bag that he unknowingly carried through security and onto the plane; these items respond to the subtle