“Run, you little bitch, run. You could run as far as you want, you can’ escape.” His uncle’s words ring in Homer Santokie’s ears as his plane gains altitude and Trinidad falls away below. He has escaped. His destination: Toronto. Homer trades a basement in Ajax for a Dixie high rise, a factory job for a position as a Hamilton school librarian. Marrying Vashti and moving into her sister’s house in Burlington, becoming a father, publishing his book — these successes should win Homer peace and security. But he craves more.

Hilarious and poignant, Homer in Flight draws a brilliant picture of a man evading one imaginary crisis after another. Homer veers from bravery to bravado, from jollity to gut-wrenching anxiety and confusion. Articulate and annoyed, he wrestles mightily with the benign reality of his new life.

“The beginning of something quite new in the literature of journeys and arrivals.”
– Trinidad Guardian

“Intelligent, ironic and emotionally honest.”
– Blood & Aphorisms

“His hope is infectious; his skill is a pleasure . . . a real awakening.”
– Books in Canada

“A novel of many pleasures . . . A talented and confident writer who has produced a work of unsparing vision and compassion that stays true to the people who inhabit it . . . A rivetting portrait of the immigrant tragedy.”
– Globe and Mail

“A remarkable achievement . . . Maharaj’s characters are vivid and entertaining; Dickensian, in a word.”
– Toronto Star

“The effect is like laughing while you’re bleeding to death.”
– Vancouver Sun