FLIGHT RECORD

by Bruce McIntosh ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2025

McIntosh offers an intense and complicated poetic memorial to his late father.

This collection covers a diversity of familial subject matter, from the poet’s idolization of his airline-pilot father as a child to his disillusionment watching his dad’s chronic alcoholism negatively impact his relationship with his family. It’s divided into three parts, roughly encompassing the poet’s childhood memories of his dad, his interactions with him as an adult, and his recollections of his father after he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, at the age of 62. The three sections are connected by one constant: the trauma caused by his father’s drinking and its aftermath. In the poem titled “16,” McIntosh remembers a Christmas morning when his hungover father told him and his brothers to go back to sleep: “waiting forever for you to come into the room / coffee in hand / so we could begin opening gifts.” Other poems detail his father driving drunk and speeding while taking the 12-year-old poet and his friends home from swim practice; the author accidently drinking his father’s “poisonous” screwdriver concoction in the refrigerator thinking it was orange juice; and McIntosh finding his father passed out on the living room carpet—“between couch and coffee table”—before he went to school in the morning. “24,” however, is one of the most memorable selections, powered by devastating detail and insight: “The cold booze hands around glasses and ice / taking you from yourself and your family / leaving you lying face down on carpets / couches car seats garage floors / Wake up / razors in your eyes / sour anger in your heart / go back for more.”

Many readers will relate to the complex dynamic and relationship phases of McIntosh and his father, which moves from admiration to disillusionment, anger, and, finally, some level of understanding and acceptance after the latter’s death. In “18,” the poet recalls buying a 1969 Harley Sportster because of his father’s love of motorcycles: “I only had it because of you / trying to be you.” Later, as a father himself, McIntosh loses his temper with his wife and unsettlingly realizes the similarities between himself and his father: “The snapping blast of anger so like your own.” Meeting up with his father at a Beverly Hills restaurant later in life—and watching him drink alcohol before piloting the next morning—leaves McIntosh disappointed and saddened: “Sons want their fathers perfect.” The wistful, nostalgic aspect of this collection can’t be overstated; McIntosh takes readers back to a simpler, or perhaps more naïve, time with numerous references that make the 1960s and ‘70s setting come alive, from rotary phones to Ovaltine and the smell of his father’s Aqua Velva aftershave. Indeed, the poet’s frequent use of sensory description immerses the reader in his recollections: “I smell Yuban coffee and…Domino sugar / whiskey and old struck out hotel matchbooks / Kool menthols and Dial soap.”

A highly recommended set of poems by an author unpacking a troubled relationship with a parent.

Pub Date: April 1, 2025

ISBN: 9798988052814

Page Count: 124

Publisher: Pinehead Press

Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2025

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS | GENERAL NONFICTION