Flight: A Novel

“Call me Zits. Everybody calls me Zits. That’s not my real name, of course. My real name isn’t important.” 

In the novel’s first lines, Zits introduces himself. He appropriates the first line of Moby Dick—“Call me Ishmael”—and inserts the humorous and self-deprecating nickname Zits. In the Bible, Ishmael was the son of Abraham; his name means “God will hear” in Hebrew. Ishmael was expelled from his father’s home and nearly died of thirst before God rescued him. Similarly, Zits has been abandoned by his father and is dismissive of his identity as a result of being a foster child who has been routinely cast aside by those who have been entrusted with caring for him.

“Yes, I am Irish and Indian, which would be the coolest blend in the world if my parents were around to teach me how to be Irish and Indian. But they’re not here and haven’t been for years, so I’m not really Irish or Indian. I’m a blank sky, a human solar eclipse.” 

Zits defines his biracial identity: He belongs to two cultures that have historically been marginalized and ostracized at varied points in American society. The Irish, however, were ultimately assimilated into American culture as “white,” while indigenous people remained marginalized. Zits never expounds on why he defines this blend as “the coolest,” but both cultures emphasize storytelling and connections to landscape. Both cultures too, unfortunately, have been linked to alcoholism. Zits likely knows all of this, but he can’t personally connect to any of it due to his absence of parentage. Not having parents means, in his view, that he doesn’t really have any heritage or ancestry to