Lip Lit: When We Have Wings, Claire Corbett

When We Have Wings – a first-time novel from writer Claire Corbett – is a rather gripping read. It’s one of those books that while it isn’t exactly a great work of literature, grabs you in. You long for your train ride to last just a little bit longer, so you can keep reading. And when you’re not reading you’re thinking about reading, thinking about the characters, thinking about what might happen.

Peri, our central character, is a rather confused young lady. She’s pretty recognisable from the many teen novels we’ve all read. Private Investigator Zeke is also a known quantity. He’s the archetypal middle-aged man, struggling with corpulence and deterioration in a society that is quickly falling beyond his grasp. But then, just to make things fun, Corbett throws these familiar folk into a very surreal situation.

In this alternate universe – that could be in our future, or could just be a very different kind of now – the most cashed up members of society pay through the roof in order to, well, be able to go through the roof. Almost literally. New developments in surgery and genetic manipulation allow them to have wings attached to their backs. Massive feather-covered wings. Yeah.

Most of these folk think they’re pretty darned awesome. In fact, a certain branch of them even goes as far as to consider themselves angels.

Fliers and non-fliers are managing to live in an uneasy co-existence, but you know things can’t possibly go on like this. I mean, since when has uneasy co-existence ever worked? Just look at… well, most of the world really.

Corbett’s descriptions of human flight are vivid and realistic. She has clearly done a lot of boning up on how wings work and how birds move, as well as other abilities that are given to these lucky humans – innate navigational abilities, heightened vision, incredibly well-developed back muscles and the ability to look really really hot and wear next to nothing.

Peri, our youthful and naïve protagonist, comes from a pretty rough background (more and more of which is revealed as we travel along), but we soon come to realise that she has somehow managed to do the seemingly impossible and get herself some wings. She lives (basically in the cupboard under the stairs) with some fliers who are clearly very rich and powerful. And she looks after their baby son, Hugo.

In the book’s actually fairly confusing and slightly awkward opening chapter, Peri finds the body of her winged friend washed up on a shore and she freaks out completely, grabs Hugo and flees.

That’s where Zeke comes in. Peri’s employers hire him to find her and bring Hugo home safely and without police involvement. But of course things can never be that simple, right?

Zeke’s going through some stuff of his own. His ex-wife desperately wants their young son to get his own pair of wings, but old Zekie’s just not sure. Fliers and non-fliers are quickly becoming more and more segregated and he doesn’t really reckon he wants his son growing up in a world that he will never be able to be a part of. Fair enough really. Obviously most parents want their kids to be able to do the things that they could never do themselves, but do you want them to do it somewhere you can’t even see it happening? Wouldn’t you want to be part of it? It’s an almost-metaphor for the way probably most parents feel about their children – you want them to live their lives, have their experiences, do the best things they could possibly do, but you also want them with you and you want to protect them. Or so I’ve heard.

I’m not saying this is what Corbett intended, but… In the wake of the Gillard government’s proposed Malaysia Solution, and the SBS’s brilliant series Go Back to Where You Came From, the issue of asylum seekers is well and truly back on the media agenda in Australia (is it ever off it?) and you often hear about unaccompanied children arriving and seeking asylum (see, for example, http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2746982.html). And it’s quite easy to think, “How could a parent do that?” “Those poor children” etc etc. But what if you really had the opportunity to give your child a better life? Would you pass it up for the selfish reason of just keeping them with you?

And so we get back to the book.

Zeke basically needs to decide whether or not he’s going to put his kid on that boat and send him out into intrepid uncertainty. So, having never even really met a flier before, Zeke is suddenly thrust into their world, and becomes embroiled in its controversies and scandals.

He’s an endearing and clever character, the window through which we can make up our own minds on whether these societal developments are cool or not. Wings = cool. Mind-altering substances = not so cool. The segregation of society = not cool. Total control by scientific companies and psycho religious leaders = so not cool. Futuristic architecture and vertiginous heights = cool. You can see how it goes.

There’s a definite fantasy element at work here, and, in combination with the detective genre, it’s easy to see why this is such an addictive read. When you’re being thrown into this whole other world, which is completely unreal yet somehow so familiar, it can sometimes be hard to pull yourself back into reality.

Dreams of flight are common enough in our everyday sleeping life, but while you’re reading this book, watch out! You’ll soar with the birds blissfully until that dreadful moment you come crashing back to earth and wakefulness with a shudder.

And soon we learn that this world of flight is pretty much not cool, generally.

As Peri’s story emerges, we find out what she has had to go through to get her wings. Turns out she’s not quite so naïve after all – she’s actually a bit of a tough nut.

And we are forced to ask ourselves the question – would I do that?

Or, like Zeke, would I keep my feet planted firmly on an incredibly tall glass structure in the sky?

Hmm, probably the latter, if anything.

– Hannah Cartmel