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Too Far From Home

By Chris Jones
Reviewed by Kenny Brechner

    A good story is rather like a freshly baked loaf of bread, unquestionably a good thing, but in need of some handling and other elements to be properly enjoyed. As with anything worthwhile, there are strategic and aesthetic choices to be made. Should one play it safe, just spread some butter on, or try something more experimental? One admires risk taking, of course, but, on the other hand, one is hardly eager to finish a piece of toast coated with ketchup and grape jelly.

    This brings us to Too Far From Home, by Chris Jones. Jones’ book is very clearly built upon a good story, as the cover advertises. “On February 1, 2003, ten astronauts were orbiting the planet. Seven were headed back to earth on the space shuttle Columbia . They never made it. And the three men left behind found themselves...Too Far From Home.” The book, then, has promised to tell us the story of two American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut stranded on the International Space Station after the U.S. Shuttle program was grounded. Indeed, the book never lets you forget that something exciting is coming, an ad hoc solution to a desperate problem.

    Jones’ solution to writing a narrative is itself more daring, innovative, and unlikely to work safely, than anything the astronauts came up with. His background as a sportswriter is everywhere evident. His narrative voice is that of a play by play announcer. “Then, suddenly, just a few weeks after they came home from Australia , Don was granted another interview, his fourth (will he make it this time?). It felt like his last best shot at his dream...(will he make it this time?). They fought to make sure they didn’t overlook whatever tiny thing had been holding him back....(will he make it this time?). It was months before the phone rang again. When it finally did, in April 1966, it was someone other than the grim Reaper calling, it was Don...(will he make it this time?). They screamed and cried and laughed at each other over the pacific (he made it this time!!!!!). It was an unreal moment (!!!!!).”

    Too Far From Home comes across as a perpetually repeating advertisement for an exciting sporting event. Its incessant hype, overstatement, and the relentless confirmation that something exciting is lurking just around the corner, do pull one along its pages, despite one’s better judgment. Jones succeeds in making the reader feel that the good part of the book, when the three men are stuck on the space station, will make wading through the tedious barrage of advertising worthwhile.

    Unlike a sporting event, which may or may not live up to its hype, the story contained in Too Far From Home is guaranteed, ironically, to disappoint, because the perpetual hype itself so badly undercuts the story. Jones seeks to establish two things. First, that the three men stranded on the international Space Station, Don Pettit, Ken Bowersox, and Nikolai Budarin, are amazingly interesting figures. Secondly, that their escape from the International Space Station is one of the most fascinating stories of all time.

    The portraiture of the three men is markedly skewed in the book, roughly 75% Pettit, 25% Bowersox, and 5% Budarin. At the end of the book Jones notes that he “would especially like to thank Don and his terrific wife, Micki, who were particularly generous with their time.” The fact that one of his subjects was more cooperative than the other two shouldn’t have been allowed to so unbalance the biographical element of the book. Pettit does in fact come across as an interesting, original thinker, but being constantly told how to feel about Pettit, along with the almost total lack of information regarding Budarin, keeps the reader from engaging in the story.

    The story of the three men’s return to earth would have been somewhat interesting if we weren’t constantly being told that it was incredibly dramatic. The hype gives us the clear sense that the astronauts must have ended up building a return module out of plastic forks and empty food wrappers. In the actual event they returned to earth in a Russian Soyuz capsule that had been specifically attached to the station for such a situation. The book makes a point of depicting the Soyuz capsule as a dangerous, petulant, even “demonic” entity. Jones relates that “Although Soyuz hasn’t carried corpses since 1971, it has come uncomfortably close to reaching the status of tomb several times.” No one can accuse Jones of not restating this fact dramatically.

    The truth is that the all rockets and capsules, whether U.S. or Russian, have proven prone to accidents and close calls. Russians like and trust the Soyuz. Using one to get down from the Space Station was hardly unusual, or dramatic. Faced with that fact, Jones falls back on playing up the wounded pride of the Americans, in not having a shuttle to fly the men back, and the “big chested pride” of the Russian, in having the Soyuz called into service.

    The story of Pettit, Bowersox and Budarin’s is a good one. Jones’ account of them, which seems to confuse an interesting non-fiction story with the Super Bowl, is not well done. The moral here is that if one has a freshly baked loaf of bread, and nothing but grape jelly and ketchup in the refrigerator, stay away from the ketchup.

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