WE OWN THE SKIES by Luke Allnutt

Finished Fr 1/18/19

January, 2019 selection Contemporary Book Club

A beautiful, year heart breaking story of how Rob and Anna Coates lose their seven year old son, Jack, to brain cancer.

Rob works with computers; sold a code for 360 degree Maps and is working on drones. He's a stay at home dad. Scott is Rob's boss in their start-up. He wants to sell out to the Chinese. Rob drags his feet because he wanted the weekly paycheck (although he works at home).

Anna is the bread winner. She works as an accountant. Lola is Anna's sister; hippy dippy, into holistic.

Dr. Sladkovsky- Prague- bogus clinic; 'immuno-engineering'

Nev- a man that posts positive results about the questionable therapy. His son Josh was totally healed.
The real Josh has died and the boy in the pictures is his cousin. Nev and his family are very poor and live in a bad area. The reason Nev is posting is that he owes many thousands of dollars to the clinic. He was forced to lie and he's a pathetic character because he really was only trying to cure his son- just like all the other people he was lying to.

The random paragraphs between chapters that have no punctuation are the notes that Rob wrote on the photo album that he made of Jack's life. He shows Anna how to add her thoughts. He had thrown out all his pictures of Anna when he was drunk and depressed, but found them on his collection of old hard drives.

When Rob was out of it and had left Anna, she kept contact by posting anonymously on his social media.

Part of the novel is set in Cornwall. This is the far western area of England. Tintagel Castle is where the King Arthur legends began.

Rob and Anna went to college in Cambridge. This town is located 65 miles north of London.

Rob's father was a very nice man. Loved football and drove a cab. Called 'Mr. Hospital' because he took poor immigrants to the hospital for free. Lived in the east end of London.

Anna's parents were strict evangelists. She grew up in a very poor area of Kenya. They live many miles northeast of London on the Suffolk coast.

Although it's not really stated in the book, Rob and Anna go to see 'INTO THE WILD'. I disagree about how they viewed and reviewed the film.(p. 34)  'Alexander Supertramp'

About the author-

"Luke Allnutt grew up in Surrey and has lived and worked in Prague as a journalist since 1998, writing mostly about technology and Eastern European politics. In 2013, he wrote about his father's death from a brain tumour in UNSPOKEN, a Kindle Single for Amazon. A keen runner, he is married and has two young boys."
Kindle Single is a short e book of nonfiction; like what a 'single' was to an 'album'.