Falling for Icarus

On a windy spring morning in an ancient Cretan village, Rory MacLean fell to earth. His mother had died a few months earlier and a single obsession had risen from his grief: the notion to build a feather-light flying machine. And so, MacLean journeyed back to beginnings, back into the Greek myths, and built a plane and tried to fly.

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On a windy spring morning in an ancient Cretan village, Rory MacLean fell to earth. His mother had died a few months earlier and a single obsession had risen from his grief: the notion to build a feather-light flying machine. And so, on the island where Daedalus and Icarus had made mankind's maiden flight, MacLean journeyed back to beginnings, back into the Greek myths, and - with the help of his Cretan neighbours and plenty of wine - built a plane and tried to fly. "Falling for Icarus" is at once a meditation on love, a celebration of the passion for flight and an hilarious, vivid portrait of a village. Its generous and exhilarating characters - Yioryio, the irrepressible cafe owner, dreamy, dying Aphrodite and divine Apostoli, would-be pilot and Greek god in a golden flying suit - restore MacLean's faith in life. Through them, he tells a soaring, moving story about how a dream can transform sadness.