A plane goes down in a field killing everyone on board. Or everyone except one little boy – soon nicknamed “miracle boy” by the press – who, having lost his parents and brother in the crash, will now be raised by an aunt. In an instant, hundreds of lives are over and thousands more are changed forever. How can loss on that scale be fathomed?
In 2020, the writer Ann Napolitano made an attempt. She turned her grim fascination with the real-life 2010 tragedy of Flight 771 into a novel called Dear Edward. In her fictionalised version, the disaster takes place on a flight from New York to Los Angeles and the nine-year-old Dutch survivor becomes a 12-year-old American boy. The novel was well received, praised for its sensitive study of sorrow and healing, and has now been adapted into a 10-episode ensemble drama by Jason Katims, best known as the Emmy-winning showrunner of high-school football series Friday Night Lights.
