Ria Lubrano, a jingles singer from Sydney can't stop thinking about her missing brother. His intermittent phone calls from somewhere in Australia's northern tableland have stopped altogether. She thinks, too, of her grandmother Emma, whose impulsive marriage to a glamorous Italian Catholic alienated her Anglican father. Ria wonders if the instinct for rebellion is in her blood. However, when Ria makes a leap herself, she finds that the duties of belonging are not easily discarded. With Flying Lessons Susan Johnson has created a powerful and involving novel about the continuities and contradictions of family.