THE PLOT: ‘Great Circle’ by Maggie Shipstead is historical fiction about a female aviator in the early 20^th century. Twins Marian and Jamie Graves are rescued from a sinking ship in 1914 and raised by their uncle in Missoula, Montana. When a pair of pilots pass through their small town, Marian commences her lifelong love of flight. A wealthy bootlegger provides a plane and sets off Marian’s path towards her biggest dream: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles. A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film about the historic flight and the two women’s fates collide. 

SUMMARY:  This mammoth book spans half a decade from prohibition-era America to World War 2 in London, with interludes about the history of female aviation and a dual-timeline set in modern-day Los Angeles. Ooof! No wonder it’s almost 600-pages. I wasn’t sure about this novel at first because it felt so disjointed. But, after spending so much time reading it, this book has wormed its way into my heart and it’s one I’ll remember for a long time. Although it feels like it could be four different books, something about Marian’s determination and ambition captured my interest. Unusually, I enjoyed both timelines equally and found the present-day storyline enriched the book, especially with its culmination which neatly tied into the historical narrative. At times, I was ready for this book to just end but, while reflecting on this review, I don’t know whether edits would change the essence of what’s good about this novel. So, despite its faults, I can see why this book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021 and the Women’s Prize in 2022, and I would read more books by this author.

GOOD BITS: This novel is a rollercoaster of emotions so I’m finding it hard to dissect. To be honest, I think it was the link between Marian and Hadley – the actress who portrays Marian in a present-day movie – that grabbed me. Unlike many readers, I found the parallels between them (however forced) worked. There’s a profound sadness to both characters and a searching for family and love that is never truly satisfied for either of them. At first, I found Marian’s “I’m not like other girls” brand of feminism irked me. But as the story developed and deepened, there’s a sense of longing and depression tied up in both women’s ambitions and failures that I identified with. The complicated psychology of all the characters in the present and past storylines, whether that’s Marian’s mothers’ sexual abuse, her uncles’ alcoholism or her navigator’s trauma due to his repressed sexuality, kept me connected to this novel throughout the meandering storylines and points of view. Overall, I liked the narration and format of the book to handle these complicated characters. It felt unique and sustained my interest in areas that could’ve been laborious or too heavy if told linearly.

NOT SO GOOD BITS:  The scope of this novel is huge. You get a large number of POV’s, an important storyline about her brother that I haven’t even touched on, and even the sub-plots even have sub-plots. Far from the derring-do of a female aviator, this book is more about parental abandonment, child neglect, grief, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, homophobia, and the kitchen sink is thrown in for good measure. The sapphic storyline was crammed in and, although I liked the whole WWII narrative, it seemed like a different book tacked onto the end of the main story. Then the final ending of Marian’s storyline in post-war America felt like it trickled away with a whimper and her big flight around the poles didn’t have the prominence in the narrative that I expected.

OVERALL: I’d recommend this book to fans of big sprawling epics with lots of trauma or family sagas. I could mention so many books as comparison titles to different aspects of this novel, but it feels like ‘Demon Copperhead’ by Barbara Kingsolver meets ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ by Bonnie Garmus with a sprinkling of the TV show ‘Band of Brothers’ (and a touch of ‘Four Winds’ by Kristin Hannah).

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