Higher Than Eagles: The Tragedy and Triumph of an American Family - Softcover

Wills, Maralys; Wills, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0996167552 ISBN 13: 9780996167550

Publisher: Lemon Lane Press, 2016

Synopsis

The family was changed by a boy-a stubborn, relentless, infuriating-but ingenious and creative boy. He was the first in a family of six children, with parents who initially balked at his fantasies. Yet almost everything that captured the world's attention-double-decker bicycles, international hang gliding records, the drama of "flying" a motorcycle, a British championship won by landing on one foot-all these were part of young Bob Wills's singular vision. Prevailing against all the people who called him impractical, a dreamer, Bobby became a legend in the fledgling sport of hang gliding. Sports Illustrated wrote of him, "Like Paul Elvstrom, the great Danish sailor, he seems now to own a special part of the wind that not even he can see and no one else can find." In the end, Bobby not only profoundly changed his family and the pilots who flocked to emulate him,he did what he'd intended all along. He lived a life that had never been lived before.

About this title

About the Author:

Maralys Wills has published twelve books, raised six children and "lucked into the world's bestteaching job." Educated at Stanford and UCLA, she teaches novel-writing on the college level and is also the author of Damn the Rejections (Stephens Press 2008). Higher Than Eagles was originally published in a hardcover edition which garnered excellent reviews and five movie options.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A California mother of six joins one of her surviving sons in recounting their family's tragic and exhilarating involvement in hang gliding--an unusual tale of an eccentric American family, and, perhaps unintentionally, a stern warning to others who long to fly. Bobby Wills stood apart from his sister and four brothers from the start, remembers Maralys, the long-suffering mother of an unbelievably rambunctious, creative, and athletic southern California brood. As a young boy, Bobby had the ambition and hyperactive imagination that led him to spend a year digging elaborate underground tunnels beneath the backyard, dreaming up wind-propelled bicycles, and trying to convince his flight-obsessed brother, Chris, to fly his homemade planes upside down. Subject to extreme bouts of asthma and violently rebellious by nature, Bobby and his equally brutal attorney father traumatized the family with window-shattering brawls as Bobby grew into a headstrong, reckless, and apparently directionless young adult who spent his days building useless inventions in the family garage. Then Chris became intrigued with the new sport of hang gliding, and through him Bobby found his m‚tier. Bobby and his brothers' startling passion for jumping off cliffs attached to giant kites eventually led to national championships, piles of trophies, a Sports Illustrated story, and a successful, family-run hang-glider design company- -until the deaths of Bobby's brother Eric and then Bobby himself from glider crashes brought that chapter of the Wills family life to a close. In alternating chapters, Chris, now a physician, conveys the boyish exhilaration that the brothers experienced in designing and flying gliders, while Maralys expresses maternal wonder at the energy and drive of her remarkable children and at the beauty of the sport they loved. A gripping tale of transformation and redemption--though some may gasp at the cost. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Lemon Lane Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0996167552
• ISBN 13: 9780996167550
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 332