Flying and freedom

Maggie Shipstead’s book Great Circle is about women and flying. At the heart of the story is Marian Graves, a woman who flies in the time between the two world wars and who disappears in the 1950s on a trip around the world from pole to pole. The book outlines her life story together with that of her father, her uncle, her brother, and her lifelong friend/occasional lover. They live mostly in poverty at a time of great opportunity. Marian wants to become a pilot and the price she has to pay is running liquor during Prohibition and a difficult marriage. Marian is always seeking freedom but continually finds herself trapped by society, her family and the restrictions of the time. Included in the narrative about Marian are details about other women fliers of the time.

The book also tells the story of Marian’s last journey and her record breaking attempt until she disappears over Australian territory with her engineer.

There is also a modern segment of the book following Hadley Baxter. Like Marian she has been brought up by her uncle but she has sought her freedom in acting, love affairs and dissolute living. She has the opportunity to play Marian in a film depicting her life story and as she researches for the role she meets people who are connected with Marian and she begins to discover the full story of her life.

Together with these three, main narrative threads the book also follows Marian’s brother in his attempt to make a career as a painter, her father and mother and their unfortunate marriage, and other relatives/friends. It’s easy enough to keep these strands separate as the book is well written and I never lost track of what was going on. Telling the story this way helps you to become immersed in the times and events, and often to see things from multiple points of view.

This is a long book but never a boring one. I confess that the part that I liked the least was the story about the film being made in the modern day. I disliked the character of Hadley because I felt that she was weak, especially when compared with Marian. The modern strand is, however, necessary to bring the book to a satisfactory (if perhaps a little unlikely) conclusion.

I enjoyed this a lot.