It depends on the airport! Some smaller airports (like Corona Municipal Airport where the story is based) - are untowered, meaning that there's no central ATC to chat with when taking off/landing - everyone announces what they're doing as they're doing it and there's a traffic pattern/flow that everyone follows to ensure there's no conflicts - it works surprisingly well.
In the US, you can get shockingly very far without having to chat with ATC.
In the US, you can get shockingly very far without having to chat with ATC.