Our flight is in defiance of the sun and its daily traverse. Come west, the sun says. It tugs at us, runs off like a child trying to entice us to follow. But we must go north, leaving the light behind.
Great Circle
by Maggie Shipstead
Genre: Historical Fiction
About: Hadley is trending on Twitter, a Hollywood executive promises to end her career, and she's been fired from a lucrative franchise. But when she's offered the role of Marian Graves - a female aviator with a colourful past and mysterious end - she finds herself drawn to Marian in unexpected ways.
The Good
The writing is sublime. I found the characters and the story (all the many layers of it) and the whole aviation history truly fascinating, but the prose was astonishing. There's so much feeling behind the writing and so much originality in the language. And I love how seamlessly the time periods fit in together. Hadley's modern LA life, to Marian's rural history. We go through the 1920s all the way through the war with jumps into 2015 and none of it feels strange. Hadley's life is an echo of Marian's in some obvious ways, but the exploration of a story within a story within a story reinforces the point that you can't really chronicle someone's life. This is fiction that feels real while reminding you that it's not.
The Bad
The pace is slow. Not really a bad thing as there isn't anything I would have wanted removed from the story. I love that we get the history of Marian's life before she's even born and that other characters are also given long, detailed histories. A minor character in the book - Jacqueline Cochran - gets a whole backstory and while it wasn't important to the main story, it really stuck with me. Everyone's lives are played out with care and give the novel an epic scale. This is not a fast read, but one to savour and enjoy.
The Somewhat Iffy
I would have liked to have had some resolution to Addison Graves. That did feel like a plot point that was dropped at some stage. I also don't know if this is just the way the character was written or what exactly it was that disappointed me but Jaime felt like the dead twin from the moment he was introduced. I liked his character but he read as expendable so when he died, it felt expected.
Overall
A beautiful story told on an epic scale. Adventure and romance fill the pages, but at its heart the story seeks to explore what drives us.
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