A startling, shape-shifting book of prose and images that draws on an unexpected pair of inspirations - the poetry of Fernando Pessoa and the history of air disasters - to investigate con men, identity politics, failures of leadership, the privilege of ineptitude, the slave trade, and the nature of consciousness. Through its inspirations and juxtapositions and its agile shifts of voice and form the book leads us to reckon with the most universal questions. What is the self? What holds the self intact and aloft?