How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly

The title of Connie May Fowler’s novel How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly comes close to saying it all. It is the story of a thirty-five-year-old woman’s inner struggle for independence and self-acceptance, which she slowly succeeds at achieving over the course of one single day—the summer solstice of 2006. The novel takes place in the hot, sticky forests and savannas of northern Florida, and it starts as one imagines the weather might feel.