Word: montandon
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...Gist: When freelance writer Mac Montandon was growing up, he explains at the outset of Jetpack Dreams, he saw the turn of the millennium as a distant future full of awesome toys. "In that glorious future," he writes, "we would have long ago traded in our dirt-streaked Hyundais...at the very least, we'd have hovercrafts and flying cars. But really, the future meant jetpacks." Now that the future has arrived, he asks a simple question: "Where's my 'f-----g jetpack?' The device captured imaginations in movies like Thunderball and The Rocketeer, but attempts to harness its potential...
Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was By Mac Montandon Da Capo Press; 261 pages...
...middle-aged men who keep the flame of jetpack obsession alight are a quirky, entertaining bunch, united by their "heart-wrenchingly beautiful dream" to fly "like a twisted bird, for a wingless, breathless twenty-two second orgasm in the air." Montandon paints funny, faintly sad portraits of this group. "These are the anonymous, doughy faces of obsession," he writes. Among them is Jeremy McGrane, a 32-year-old New Hampshire resident who built his own "beautifully sleek, blue-corseted rocket belt," and who speaks candidly about the all-consuming nature of his pursuit: "Most guys are dreaming of alcohol...
...flights of fancy don't just have the power to make men spend countless hours tinkering with a technology that hasn't improved much in decades. They've also spurred some twisted behavior. In a vivid, detailed account of the "blood-soaked disaster" that was the American Rocketbelt Corporation, Montandon reveals the underbelly of this single-minded quest. Brawls and lawsuits over "Pretty Bird" - a "cherry red" belt whose "silver tanks shone so brightly you could comb your hair in their reflection" - spiral into a sordid tale of murder, kidnapping and torture. After being sentenced to life imprisonment...
...Lowdown: Montandon locates the origins of his project in the urge to quash the creeping feeling that, despite the successes of his career, he's yet to do anything exceptional. "I wanted my Moby Dick," he writes. Readers can get behind that feeling, and as a witty and likable writer, he makes a good companion for this quixotic journey. But it's a far cry from chasing white whales, even if both stories explore the pursuit of elusive goals. "How did a fairly useless device hold such power over their imaginations?" Montandon wonders of his subjects. For his purposes...