Clare L. Deming

I don’t remember how I heard about Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, but sometimes I branch out from genre fiction to read something more mainstream (paid link). I needed an audiobook to break up the long Outlander series, so I picked this one up from Audible. As a pilot myself, I was attracted to this story about a female aviator, so I imagine the description of the book’s main character is what had initially intrigued me.

Here is the blurb:

Spanning Prohibition-era Montana, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, New Zealand, wartime London, and modern-day Los Angeles, Great Circle tells the unforgettable story of a daredevil female aviator determined to chart her own course in life, at any cost.

After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There—after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes—Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles.

A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian’s disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian’s own story, as the two women’s fates—and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times—collide. Epic and emotional, meticulously researched and gloriously told, Great Circle is a monumental work of art, and a tremendous leap forward for the prodigiously gifted Maggie Shipstead.

At over 600 pages for the print edition and over 25 hours for the audiobook, this was a substantial book. Fortunately, I enjoyed most of it and never felt like it dragged. The narrative follows two different timelines. The main story is that of Marian Graves, starting at her birth, detailing her obsession with flight, and eventually leading her to attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Interspersed with Marian’s tale is a modern day story about actress Hadley Baxter as she stumbles into playing Marian in a film about her life. Both timelines held my interest and I never felt like I had to “get through” one to get back to the more interesting part of the book.

This book was about the characters and how they changed over time and interacted with each other. Marian’s twin brother and artist, the uncle who raises them, her childhood best friend, her flight instructor, bootleggers, and wartime pilots all touch upon Marian’s life. Yet despite all of these social connections, Marian is most at home in the sky, alone in her airplane where no one can judge her or needs to understand her.

Hadley Baxter was a less important character, but as the novel evolves, her links to Marian also became evident. This book was carefully crafted to link their histories. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but the ending of the book left me guessing just enough as Marian hurtled toward unavoidable tragedy, her destiny already known to history.

The book included several nice touches to Marian’s flight training that were accurate to my own experience in learning to fly. The little details and phrases that came up are still used in flight instruction, and while I’m not qualified to comment on the historic aircraft, nothing stood out as grossly wrong. The author accurately described the problems with weather and disorientation, pushing the boundaries of your aircraft, and how to handle emergencies.

I am glad to have ventured out of my genre reading niche for this one. What other historical fiction should I read? I have a couple on my list: The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell, and The Alice Network by Kate Quinn (paid links). Let me know your suggestions in the comments.

You can find more of my book reviews here.