Night Flight

The story unfolds in 1930s South America, when commercial aviation was still in its infancy. Rivière, the airline's route manager—modeled on the aviation pioneer Didier Daurat—is consumed by a single obsession: to have mail flights take off on schedule at night so that letters can reach the Argentina-to-Europe route without delay. To this end, he demands almost inhumanly of his men: delays must be punished, cowardice exposed to a man's face. Meanwhile, on three night routes, aircraft from Patagonia, Chile, and Paraguay are threading their way toward Buenos Aires through darkness and storm.

The pilot Fabien is flying the mail plane back from the southernmost tip. When he takes off, the sky is clear and the air calm; beneath his wings he watches the lights of small towns along the way, circling above them like a shepherd. Before long, a storm gathers over the Andes, the radio dissolves into static, and the fuel runs lower and lower. On the ground, the office stays brightly lit as Rivière waits for word and weighs his decision: let the Europe-bound flight, loaded with mail, depart on time, or keep waiting for a plane that may never return.

Compact in length and tight in pacing, the book moves between two alternating narratives—sky and ground, darkness and light—in language that borders on prose poetry. It chronicles the daring history of humanity's first night routes, and at the same time asks a question about duty, sacrifice, and what, if anything, is more precious than life itself.