Kate Folk’s 2025 novel, Sky Daddy, is a work of satirical literary fiction. The novel is narrated by Linda, a content moderator in San Francisco who harbors a secret and all-consuming desire: to achieve a spiritual marriage with an airplane by dying in a spectacular crash. The novel uses this surreal premise to explore themes of deep disconnection and The Alienating Nature of Modern Life.

Folk is also the author of the acclaimed story collection Out There, which was a finalist for the Golden Poppy and Locus Awards and is in development as a television series. Sky Daddy expands on the strange, tech-inflected anxieties of her short fiction, satirizing contemporary wellness culture and exploring Manifestation as Toxic Positivity and The Psychological Toll of Hidden Digital Labor. The novel is explicitly in conversation with Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, reframing the classic tale of monomania as a contemporary story of one woman’s darkly romantic and fatalistic quest.

This guide refers to the 2025 Random House edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of suicidal ideation, mental illness, physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual content, sexual harassment, substance use, disordered eating, bullying, animal cruelty, cursing, death, and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

Linda, a content moderator for a video-sharing platform called Acuity, lives a quiet life in San Francisco, harboring a secret and all-consuming desire: to be “married” to a plane in a fiery, passionate crash. This desire is informed by an adolescent experience aboard a 737 plane designated N92823, in which severe turbulence aboard the flight caused Linda to experience her first orgasm. She believes dying aboard a plane is her destiny and spends her free time pursuing connections with planes, often by riding the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) AirTrain or taking a monthly round-trip flight to a regional hub. Consequently, she also often thinks of planes as men, often referring to them with he/him pronouns.

Linda’s only human friend is her coworker, Karina Carvalho, a kind but anxious woman with a severe fear of flying. When Karina invites Linda to her friend group’s quarterly Vision Board Brunch, Linda faces a dilemma. Unable to reveal her true desire, she creates a cover, crafting a vision board populated with images of planes and handsome pilots, pretending her goal is to marry a pilot. This act sets in motion a series of events that test her beliefs and relationships. The brunch itself is a success, and Linda feels accepted by Karina’s friends, Esme, Stacy, and Judy, despite her board’s eccentricities.

Taking her cover seriously, Linda tries online dating. After a failed attempt on a spam-filled site called Pilotdate.net, she creates a profile on OkCupid. This leads to a coffee date with a man named Simon, who falsely claimed to be a pilot and proves to be a disappointment. Linda’s faith in the vision board’s power is shaken until, at the SFO airport, she has a chance encounter with Guillaume Faury, the CEO of Airbus, whose picture she had included on her board. This stunning coincidence convinces her that the universe responds to her intentions literally. Meanwhile, a bizarre incident at Acuity, in which a disgruntled night-shift worker vandalizes company property, prompts a site inspection from Dave Kinney, a manager from Acuity’s parent company. During a one-on-one meeting, Linda impresses Dave with her efficiency and asks for a raise. Their professional relationship takes a sharp turn when they run into each other at a club. Dave, intoxicated and spiraling from his recent divorce, impulsively agrees to Linda’s suggestion that they take a flight to Houston. During takeoff, a powerful wave of arousal overcomes Linda, and she guides Dave’s hand under a blanket to pleasure her, an act he reciprocates.

This incident establishes a strange, transactional relationship. Dave, whose libido is suppressed by antidepressants, discovers he can only achieve an erection while flying with Linda. Linda, in turn, gets a source of free flights. Their arrangement escalates with a second trip to Denver, where Dave insists Linda pretend to be his girlfriend during a disastrous and confrontational visit with an old rival, Mike. The artifice of their relationship becomes too real for Dave when he accompanies Linda to her mother Deb’s 60th birthday party in Irvine. After meeting Linda’s family, including her brother Al and sister-in-law Denise, Dave ends their affair, leaving Linda feeling used and abandoned. However, at the John Wayne Airport, Linda experiences a revelation: She sees N92823, the 737 from her youth whose turbulent flight sparked her sexual awakening. She had believed him to be decommissioned for years, and his miraculous return to service reignites her core obsession, convincing her that their reunion is fated.

Throughout this period, Linda’s friendship with Karina deepens. To help Karina overcome her aerophobia so she can take a honeymoon flight to Hawaii with her fiancé Anthony, Linda becomes her “flight coach.” Their initial sessions, which involve watching planes at Ocean Beach, visiting the airport, and observing landings from the Elephant Bar, are successful, and Karina agrees to a practice flight to Salt Lake City. Onboard the plane, N549UW, Linda feels an overwhelming electric pulse, the same sensation she felt on N92823 as a teenager. Convinced that this is her destined crash and that Karina’s fate is intertwined with hers, Linda confesses her true desire and urges a terrified Karina to get off the plane. Karina flees just before the door closes, shattering their friendship. The flight proceeds without incident, leaving Linda alone and devastated. She quits her job, but not before extorting a $5,000 payout from Acuity after Simon, who now works there, discovers a video of Linda and Dave’s in-flight act and attempts to blackmail Dave. At the next Vision Board Brunch meeting, Linda declares her true intentions of dying in a plane crash, alienating herself from them, while Karina declares her own intention to surrender her need to control her life, which the group celebrates.

With her payout, Linda embarks on a flight binge, pursuing N92823 across the country. She takes 17 flights with him, but all the flights are uneventful, signaling to Linda that her beloved plane has not “chosen” her back. Penniless and heartbroken, she becomes an unhoused person, sleeping in gate areas at Chicago’s O’Hare airport and eating leftover food from trash cans. Her friends and family grow increasingly worried. After Simon pinpoints her location from a FaceTime call, Karina conquers her fear and flies to Chicago to find her. In an emotional confrontation at the airport, Karina reveals her own deep-seated guilt over bullying a girl in high school, which she believes she is supposed to die for in a karmic plane accident. She affirms her unconditional friendship, telling Linda that her strange desires don’t matter and that people at home miss her. Moved by Karina’s loyalty and love, Linda agrees to fly back to San Francisco with her. The next day, they board their flight home together. As the plane takes off, Linda once again feels the powerful, electric vibration of a plane recognizing them. She takes Karina’s hand, and sees in her friend’s eyes a calm acceptance. The book ends as the plane rolls, its wing pointing toward the earth, initiating the final, shared consummation of Linda’s lifelong dream.