Jonathan Miles’ debut novel “Dear American Airlines” is due to be released by Houghton Mifflin on June 5. However, if you go to www.dearamericanairlines.com, you can download the complete novel for free; the offer is good for a week, according to an ad that ran in this morning’s New York Times.

Why do we care?

Because Miles grew up in Oxford, Miss., hung out, drank tons of beer, attended a few classes at Ole Miss but never graduated and was a prodigious protege of the novelist and short-story-writer Larry Brown, who died in 2004. In fact, Miles became such a part of Brown’s family that he is listed on Brown’s tombstone along with his other children. Not that “Dear American Airlines” is like anything that Brown wrote; oh no.

Miles, who lives north of New York City, is a prolific freelance writer, books columnist for Men’s Journal, as well as writing the weekly cocktail report in the Times’ “Sunday Styles” section. O supreme gig! Two weeks ago, at The Oxford Conference for the Book, Miles served as moderator for a panel on the art and the state of print book-reviewing; I was a member of that panel, along with Dwight Garner, senior editor at The New York Times Book review, and J. Peder Zane, former book review editor for the News and Observer, in Raleigh, N.C., now that paper’s “ideas” columnist — another supreme gig — and editor of “Remarkable Reads: 34 Writers and Their Adventures in Reading” and “The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books.”

Heady company, indeed, and it got headier when, after the conclusion of our panel discussion, we met at Ajax on the Oxford town square for a lunch of chicken and dumplings, country fried steak and the restaurant’s signature pimiento cheese po-boy. Joining us were Miles’ wife Cat, who works for the wine importer Bartholomew Broadbent, and their three amazingly well-behaved children, and Zane’s wife Jeanine. Many beers and Bloody Marys were consumed. It was a long, hilarious lunch, but somehow not long enough.

There’s an excellent (and pretty hilarious) interview with Jonathan Miles at popmatters.com.