Print
When the title character of Richard Farrell’s debut novel, “The Falling Woman,” survives a plane crash, she lands on an epiphany. Farrell knows how that feels. The epiphany part, anyway.
In the case of the fictional Erin Geraghty, the change of heart comes when the plane that is supposed to take her from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco explodes in midair. Everyone on the plane dies except for Erin, who uses her second chance to rethink her whole life.
In the case of the man who created Erin, the miracle also happened in midair. In 1992, the Massachusetts native had begun Primary Flight Training at the U.S. Navy’s flight school in Pensacola, Fla., making good on his childhood dream of becoming a pilot. But after he had an epileptic seizure during training, Farrell was told he would never be able to fly again.