Paula McLain
I read a previous book by this author, the Paris Wife. I think I enjoyed that one.
I did not enjoy this book. I forced myself to finish it. I did not enjoy the story and had no sympathy for the main character, Beryl Markham.
Beryl's father brought the family to Kenya in 1904. His wife hated it and went back to England with the son, leaving the daughter and father behind. A psychologist would have a field day with this, leaving your daughter but taking your son...
Beryl's father struggles to build a farm and a horse training business and is not successful. He brings a woman to the farm, a housekeeper/lover. Beryl learns horse training from her father. When her father sells the farm with plans to move to South Africa Beryl decides to marry a local farmer. She is only 16. They don't really know each other and the marriage is a disaster.
She eventually leaves her husband on the pretext of getting training to be a professional horse trainer. She has an affair with a black man. Her behaviour and her affair cause a scandal and she fights with her husband but he won't give her a divorce.
The book portrays lives of the rich/party scene in Kenya. Beryl meets Karen Blixen who is married but having an affair with a man who takes rich people on game hunts, Denys Finch Hutton. Beryl has an affair with him and gets pregnant, she aborts the baby.
She later is a kept woman, then goes on to remarry and have a disabled son whom she leaves in England with her husband and his family.
This woman seemed to have a sad life but you have to wonder how much she brought on herself with her wilfulness. I would have liked to have heard other people's impressions of her in addition to the author's sympathetic tone.
The book drones on over the first few years of her life and then covers her aviation career and the rest of her life in 50 pages. It was like the author herself had enough and wanted to get the book over with.
This book is a best seller but I can't say I agree with its popularity. I guess it is the appeal of the strongly independent woman.
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