Last year, I spent months researching the life of pioneering aviator Lilian Bland. I’d known of Bessie Coleman and Amelia Earhart, sure, but as I learned more about Bland, I realized how unfamiliar I was with the myriad other women who had made aviation history. Off I went, full throttle into the achievements and legacies of women pilots like Florence Klingensmith, Amy Johnson, and Katherine Cheung. At a time when I wasn’t flying, soaring and spinning through the sky via the escapades of these women was a fitting substitute—no airsickness included.
It is hardly surprising, then, that I tore through my copy of Maggie Shipstead’s ambitious new novel, Great Circle (Knopf, May 2021), which weaves together the stories of two women: famous aviator Marian Graves, who disappears on a flight to the north and south poles, and actress Hadley Baxter, who is hired a century later to portray Marian in a film. Even though the two women are separated by time and geography, we come to know more about each one through alternating perspectives; Marian’s story told in third person, Hadley’s in first. We feel their closeness as they share similar struggles and ambitions.
As I read Great Circle, I kept coming back to the idea of two musicians: Marian and Hadley are compelling enough on their own, but as their stories become more intertwined, a natural harmony builds. By the end of the book—even though it tops out over 500 pages—you’re still wishing the music would go on.
Shipstead is best known for her two previous novels—her bestselling debut, 2012’s Seating Arrangements and 2014’s Astonish Me, winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize—and says she’d been working loosely on another novel when she had the idea for Great Circle. It was 2012, and she was at Auckland Airport when she noticed a statue of a woman named Jean Batten, who had made the first-ever solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936 and was called the “Garbo of the Skies.” The statue was inscribed with one of Batten’s quotes: “I was destined to be a wanderer.” Immediately, Shipstead says, this resonated. “I thought, ‘Oh, I should write a book about a female pilot.’ For some reason, that struck me as inarguable,” she says.
Fittingly, Shipstead opens Great Circle with an excerpt from Marian’s logbook, with a sentence that riffs on Batten’s quote: “I was born to be a wanderer.” But despite first having the idea for the novel in 2012, Shipstead didn’t start Great Circle until fall of 2014, around the same time that she began writing travel features—reporting she found “deeply symbiotic,” she says. This real-life experience of place shows in the book, which moves with Marian, Hadley, and their networks through Montana, Alaska, London, Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris, and Antarctica. Under Shipstead’s skillful hand, these destinations come alive, giving you the sensation that you know them a little better than you did before, just like you do with Marian and Hadley.
To learn more, tune in to our discussion with the author on June 3 at 7 p.m. EST/4 p.m. PST. We hope you’ll join us. Register for the webinar, and please share your questions.
Yours in circumnavigation, Katherine LaGrave Digital features editor
It is hardly surprising, then, that I tore through my copy of Maggie Shipstead’s ambitious new novel, Great Circle (Knopf, May 2021), which weaves together the stories of two women: famous aviator Marian Graves, who disappears on a flight to the north and south poles, and actress Hadley Baxter, who is hired a century later to portray Marian in a film. Even though the two women are separated by time and geography, we come to know more about each one through alternating perspectives; Marian’s story told in third person, Hadley’s in first. We feel their closeness as they share similar struggles and ambitions.
As I read Great Circle, I kept coming back to the idea of two musicians: Marian and Hadley are compelling enough on their own, but as their stories become more intertwined, a natural harmony builds. By the end of the book—even though it tops out over 500 pages—you’re still wishing the music would go on.
Shipstead is best known for her two previous novels—her bestselling debut, 2012’s Seating Arrangements and 2014’s Astonish Me, winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize—and says she’d been working loosely on another novel when she had the idea for Great Circle. It was 2012, and she was at Auckland Airport when she noticed a statue of a woman named Jean Batten, who had made the first-ever solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936 and was called the “Garbo of the Skies.” The statue was inscribed with one of Batten’s quotes: “I was destined to be a wanderer.” Immediately, Shipstead says, this resonated. “I thought, ‘Oh, I should write a book about a female pilot.’ For some reason, that struck me as inarguable,” she says.
Fittingly, Shipstead opens Great Circle with an excerpt from Marian’s logbook, with a sentence that riffs on Batten’s quote: “I was born to be a wanderer.” But despite first having the idea for the novel in 2012, Shipstead didn’t start Great Circle until fall of 2014, around the same time that she began writing travel features—reporting she found “deeply symbiotic,” she says. This real-life experience of place shows in the book, which moves with Marian, Hadley, and their networks through Montana, Alaska, London, Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris, and Antarctica. Under Shipstead’s skillful hand, these destinations come alive, giving you the sensation that you know them a little better than you did before, just like you do with Marian and Hadley.
To learn more, tune in to our discussion with the author on June 3 at 7 p.m. EST/4 p.m. PST. We hope you’ll join us. Register for the webinar, and please share your questions.
Yours in circumnavigation,
Katherine LaGrave
Digital features editor