Up in the Air
Walter Kirn
 Ryan Bingham is a 35-year-old career transition counselor for a Denver-based management consulting company, Integrated Strategic Management (ISM). He flies around the country firing and then counseling recently laid-off people and counseling them for reentering the job market. Bingham is trying to get to one million frequent flyer miles, a number only reached by nine other people in the same mileage club (from the fictional airline "Great West") before his boss returns from vacation, finds his letter of resignation and cancels his company credit card. Bingham is positioning himself to be hired by MythTech, a shadowy company based in Omaha. He is divorced and his disturbed younger sister is about to embark on yet another disastrous relationship. Bingham inhabits a world of Palm Pilots, rental cars, salted almonds, Kevlar luggage and nameless suite hotels where e-mail and voice mail are the communication norm. He takes a lot of pills and spends time with women in Las Vegas. Bingham fears that someone may be furtively cashing in his precious miles, which would be tantamount to stealing his soul.