This Is Your Captain Speaking

Methven’s buoyant debut fictionalizes Captain “Sully” Sullenberger’s emergency water landing, the renowned Miracle on the Hudson, and asks “what, if anything, it has to do with celebrity ejaculate,” specifically John Lennon’s. Fugitive semen trafficker Normal Fulk has smuggled a vial aboard the Air Wanderlust flight that Capt. Hank Swagger water-lands off Manhattan’s Pier 66, bringing Fulk back into the viewfinder of Rory Genius-Temple, a violent thug and producer of the reality show Semen Pirates. While Swagger’s heroics may reverse the airline’s financial nosedive, his evacuation ass-slapping draws the suspicions of another passenger, Celebrity Twitter Beat anchor and Sandra Bullock look-alike Lucy Springer. Noting that the rescue is too orderly, the boats too swift, and the passengers too good-looking, Springer smells a hoax. As Fulk, Swagger, and Springer execute—and sometimes botch—their missions, a man called Blackie Spin sits in the shadows, pulling the strings. Fans of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency will relish this frequent contributor’s snappy farce about publicity, celebrity culture, and a ne’er-do-well’s attempt to save some crippled orphans by way of one Beatle’s frozen swimmers. Agent: David Patterson, Foundry Literary + Media. (June)