Benjamin Johncock

Praise

“By far the best debut novel I’ve read in years... like the reclusive disciple of Cormac McCarthy and Saint-Exupéry.”

—Joanne Harris

“Benjamin Johncock is a writer of great craft and integrity. His dialogue is desert-dry, and his sentences crackle with the energy of things unsaid. With The Last Pilot he has done something remarkable: in a novel about the achievements of the space-race, he has shown us that true heroism lies in doing the right thing behind the closed doors of home. Wonderful stuff.”

—Jon McGregor

“A hugely impressive piece of work... an astonishing achievement. I loved it.”

—Ian Rankin

“The Last Pilot made me cry and brought back all my old Right Stuff feels. A brilliant debut. I loved it.”

—Helen MacDonald

“A confident, engrossing debut novel with great warmth and a real sense of time and place. Great stuff.”

—A.L. Kennedy

“The Last Pilot nods to some august literary forebears—Tom Wolfe, Raymond Carver, James Salter—and yet moves to an internal beat of its own. Covering an era of American aviation from breaking the sound barrier to the space race of the 1960s, its dry, laconic prose is as acute in unpicking the mysteries of marriage and bereavement as it is in conveying the vertiginous limits of ambition and daring.”

—Anthony Quinn

“Exhilarating.”

—Jonathan Lee

“Carver is the obvious influence but this is no mere imitation. The writing is machine-cut and spare... like the pilots at this story’s centre, Johncock has dared to reach for the stars.”

—D.W. Wilson

“A cracking read.”

—John Crace

“I read The Last Pilot in a single sitting, drawn into this story of a couple's journey through love and grief as it unfolds during the tense early days of the space race. Told in language as beautifully spare – and unsparing – as a desert or a moonscape, The Last Pilot reminds us in powerful ways that the real unknown frontier still lies within the mysteries of the human heart.”

—Kim Edwards

“Superb—thrilling and very moving.”

—Alan Glynn

“One of the best debuts I have read in ages. Could have been written by an American heavyweight at their best.” —Scott Pack

“Benjamin Johncock is 100% the real deal. The Last Pilot is as good as everyone says. Astoundingly so.”

—Chris McVeigh

★