The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky

The story of one man’s search for the truth about his brother—and himself.

“Hugely satisfying ... [Dornstein's] journey ... reveals not just the truth about the Dornstein brothers but about love, loss, and ultimately life's inescapable transience.” —The Boston Globe

David Dornstein was twenty-five years old, with dreams of becoming a great writer, when he boarded Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988. Thirty-eight minutes after takeoff, a terrorist bomb ripped the plane apart over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Almost a decade later, Ken Dornstein set out to solve the riddle of his older brother’s life, using the notebooks and manuscripts that David left behind. In the process, he also began to create a new life of his own.