I recently finished reading Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead. It’s a wonderful novel and I really enjoyed it. It was a New York Times best seller and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It’s the story of Marian Graves, a woman maneuvering her way between tradition and prejudice to get what she wants. It’s an expansive story that covers more than a century and the whole world.
It’s also packed with action and excitement. As Lynn Steger Strong says in her NYT review:
Within the first 60 pages of Maggie Shipstead’s “Great Circle,” there are two plane crashes, the beginning of a Hollywood rendition of a plane crash and a sunken ship. There’s childhood abuse, adultery and a presumed postpartum suicide. There’s an orphaned 2-year-old and a father sent to Sing Sing as a result of his choice to save his infant twins from the aforementioned sinking ship. There is also a brush with death inside a car that’s rusting in the middle of a rushing stream.
The amazing thing is that Shipstead keeps this up; there are no dull pages. It’s the story of two women (and lots of other people). One, Marian Graves, one of the infant twins. She is sent with her brother to live with her uncle in Missoula Montana where she lives an idyllic existence until, at age 12, she witnesses some barnstorming aviators who captivate her and she determines that she is going to be a pilot and fly. The other is Hadley Baxter, the recently shamed and fired star of a “Twilight”-esque series of movies, who is set to play Marian onscreen. In one of my favorite details, the film is based in part on a journal found floating in its own life preserver in the Arctic, years after Marian’s plane was lost as she attempted to longitudinally circumnavigate the globe.
Hadley’s sections are told in the first person, Marian’s in the third person. The other major character is Marian’s brother Jamie who develops an intense love for the natural world. He is a sensitive, vegetarian, animal loving painter whose life intersects with Marian and her various lovers from time to time. There are dozens of other characters and they all add interest and depth to the book.
Marian pesters the pilots at the local airfield and delivers moonshine to make some money that she tries to save up for flying lessons. She has to use all the money, though, to bail out her alcoholic gambling uncle. A local bootlegger, though, pays for her lessons and she eventually marries him despite her doubts. their relationship is oppressive and turns violent, prompting her to escape to Alaska, where she joins an all-women’s contingent of pilots during World War II. She will find love there, and it will be more dangerous and risky than the flights. There will also be immense loss.
It’s a culturally rich book which takes advantage of its length to explore the changing attitudes of the 20th century. There’s plenty of discussion of other famous aviators and the momentous events which lead to wars. But Shipstead is particularly interested in the way attitudes about gender shape women’s expectations, desires and careers. Marian utterly rejects the gallant respect for her femininity, which she knows is just a pretty way of keeping her tethered and hooded like a tame falcon. To the alarm of almost everyone who claims to care for her, Marian’s dexterity in the air is matched by her fluid sexual identity.
It’s a long and complex novel. Some readers complained about the length (about 600 pages in the hardback edition), but I really think the story and all the characters are worth the length (Shipstead claims that she whittled it down from a thousand pages). I really enjoyed it and I think you will too. Give it a try. I’m going to go find some of Shipstead’s other works.
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