Benjamin Johncock

The Last Pilot Benjamin Johncock

Jim Harrison is a test pilot in the United States Air Force, one of the exalted few. He spends his days in a precarious dance with death above the Mojave Desert and his nights at his friend Panchos bar, often with his wife, Grace. Both are secretly desperate for a child and, against all odds, Grace learns that she is pregnant. When NASA, newly formed, offers Harrison the chance to be the first man in space before the Russians, he turns it down and becomes a father to Florence, his baby girl. Yet his life—as a father and a pilot—grinds to a halt when she becomes ill and dies at the age of two. Devastated, Harrison loses himself in his work and, sometimes, in distressing thoughts of Florence, and this time, when he gets his ticket to the moon, he takes it—without consulting Grace. If he fails, he will lose the one thing he has left: his ability to fly. Set against the backdrop of one of the most emotionally charged periods in American history, The Last Pilot is a mesmerizing story of loss and finding courage in the face of it from an extraordinary new talent.