Flight: A Novel

An alarm clock beeps and awakens Zits. He’s in a strange room, which is unsurprising—he’s always in strange rooms. He knows that he didn’t set the alarm clock because, if he had, it would’ve played music that he likes—Kanye West, the White Stripes, or even music from his dead mother’s favorite band, Blood, Sweat & Tears. He recalls her serenading him with her favorite of their songs, “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know.” He was just an infant then, but he believes that he remembers this. He also believes that he remembers his conception. He recalls his “mother and father slow-dancing to that Blood, Sweat & Tears song,” and his father singing it to his mother in a whisper (10). Zits believes that he was conceived because of that song.

He decides to stop thinking about his parents and focuses on where he is—in yet another foster home. He looks in the mirror and counts all of the pimples on his face: 47.

He remembers nothing about his father, but knows that he was an Indian “[f]rom this or that tribe” and “[f]rom this or that reservation” (11). His father was a drunk who abandoned him, and Zits’ mother, who was Irish, died when he was six.