Love, Loneliness, and Planes
Unapologetically weird and strangely believable, Sky Daddy flies on the strength of vivid detail and the origins of a bizarre obsession. Author Kate Folk gives us Linda, a woman consumed with longing for a Boeing 737, “the sky’s narrow-bodied workhorse.” She affectionately calls a particular N92823 her first love. Their relationship began when she was thirteen during a turbulent flight that marked her in ways even she doesn’t fully understand. Readers soon discover there’s more to her obsession than she’s willing to admit.
Rising into madness
Linda spends her days flagging hate and harassment for a social media company and her nights holed up in a windowless garage apartment that her newish work friend Karina jokingly calls a “sensory deprivation tank.” When Karina invites her to a vision-board gathering, she learns Linda isn’t just a frequent flyer with dreams of marrying a pilot—she’s truly obsessed with flying. Karina then recruits her to help conquer her fear of flying.
This favor sets off a chain of events that pushes Linda into a crisis. Shortly after their first flight together goes haywire, Linda quits her job, distances herself from Karina, and sets off in search of transcendence, hopefully in the form of a catastrophic plane crash. When she discovers her beloved N92823 is back in service, fetish becomes fixation and then a full-blown escape attempt. But who or what is Linda really trying to escape? Can salvation come from a plane, or from the equally flawed friends who care about her, even if they don’t understand her?
The writing soars
Folk’s prose is jarringly sensual, often disturbing, and at times darkly funny. Take this passage:
N108DQ’s engines powered up in a ferocious roar, like a beast drawing air into his lungs. We surged forward in our takeoff roll, gathering speed that pinned me to my seat. His fuselage shook with the velocity, the cabin rattling until, at the moment it felt we would shatter apart, his nose lifted, and we rose into the sky. Our ascent was deliciously rocky, giving me hope that N108DQ had recognized and sought to claim me. Each jolt issued a ribbon of pleasure through my body…N108DQ brought me to the edge and I pushed myself over. As we carved through rough air, I came silently, again and again.
Readers cannot help but feel empathy for Linda, not an easy feat for such a strange woman who pushes away her friends and family. Yet her loneliness, guilt, obsession, longing, fears and surrender are all there, suspended at 30,000 feet, sweeping us along with her.
Thank you for visiting.
Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a wrangler of words and big messy feelings in fiction and poetry.
In the Context of Love | Gordy and the Ghost Crab | Sleepwalker
Love and Other Incurable Ailments, coming 10/27/2026 from Regal House Publishing
Connect with Linda on social media: LinkTree
