"Crash-Landing" is an exploration of modern day fear and failure. Its subject is self-delusion and self-fulfillment, sexual entanglements and midlife anxiety, marriage and existential loneliness.

Named after Lindbergh, his parents' hero, Charles Burg has neither the requisite head for heights nor the stomach to go it alone. Though destined for a fall, he contrives by never looking down to keep his marriage to Anne aloft through years of circling, of buffeting crosswinds, instrument failure and near collisions. When the crackup finally comes, the touchdown is not tragic, flaming wreck,...