Such is Pardlo Jr.’s style—the syntax and thought process sinuous, elegant, the mood one of blunt disclosure ... The book’s prose is often exhilarating ... One of the difficult things about this fascinating book is that the father, so flawed and infuriating, has so many great lines. Another is the feeling of absence in the prose itself, which never lacks in perception but often feels lacking in intimacy with the characters, including the character of Gregory Pardlo, Jr., once he is no longer a child. But then the difficulties of intimacy—of spacing, to put it in air traffic controller terms—are the book’s subject.
Air Traffic is a narrative digest of his life and those of his family members, several of whom also experienced dramatic rises and falls. The poet delves deeply into a mosaic of memories, chronicling growing up black in Willingboro, New Jersey, in the 1970s and the battles he, his brother, father and other relatives have fought with depression, alcoholism and mental illness ... Pardlo seems to be defying the odds, turning his pain into mesmerizing poetry and prose.
In prose at once lucid, lyrical and rich in simile, Pardlo historicizes his grandfathers’ migration to the East Coast, his family’s middle-class life in suburban New Jersey, episodes of adolescent strife and his hasty enlistment in the Marine Corps Reserve ... The book shifts midway to a collection of short essays that show an enviable talent for aphorism. Pardlo examines the existential quality of mutual orgasms, his marriages, the role of time in the lives of African-Americans and his experiences raising two daughters. The topic of race is never far, though Pardlo appears conflicted. He asserts he isn’t a 'practicing black' ... Those statements beg deeper explication. And there are other moments that would have benefited from a more sustained investigation ... Pardlo is perhaps most vulnerable and incisive on the topic of addiction. He acknowledges his grandparents’ struggle with alcoholism, reflects on his father’s and brother’s fights with substance abuse and his own decades-long battle ... Had he lived long enough to read Air Traffic, one hopes he [Pardlo's father] could have seen past his hubris and their strained relations to offer what might be Pardlo’s most coveted review: Well done, son. You did good.
About 100 pages from the end, the book shifts from a more or less seamless narrative to a series of stitched-together observations and mini-essays on race, black art and the perils of parenting. While his thoughts on these and other subjects are perceptive and provocative, they seldom are as intriguing as the tale of his own meanderings. He eschews a straight line, he tells readers, because his experience has been anything but ... Pardlo shares these reflections in prose that seems powerful and effortless. At the same time, he often writes as if holding something in reserve, perhaps stockpiling memories and experiences to be examined in future essays, poems and memoirs. Let’s hope so.
I like when poets write prose. Air Traffic, Pardlo’s new memoir, is a masterful consideration of manhood in contemporary America: the lies we tell ourselves, the struggle to find our own identity in the shadow of fathers, and the sweet perils of ambition.
Pardlo’s work is masterfully personal, with passages that come at you with the urgent force of his powerful convictions ... The author manages to distill stereotypes to their very core, providing a genuine and productive exposition of issues of masculinity in the contemporary world. An engrossing memoir of history and memory.
Pardlo’s boisterous and affectionate memoir tells of a life of alienation, self-destructive behavior, and the search for self ... Pardlo’s memoir powerfully illustrates one man’s attempt to reconcile the ways that family dynamics influence and infiltrate people’s lives.
