Great Circle

 by Maggie Shipstead   

This book is nominated for the Booker this year. 

It is basically the story of two women, a fictional woman pilot who disappeared while on an attempt to circle the globe from pole to pole and and actress whose career is in tailspin who takes on the role of playing the pilot in a movie.

The book starts with a ship captain who marries a rather unsuitable woman.  She gets pregnant and has twins.  While the captain's family is sailing on one of his atlantic crossings the boat sinks.  The owner had been storing weapons material on the ship (in an effort to serve the war effort).  The captain is vilified and imprisoned when he jumps from the ship with his two children leaving the ship and many passengers to go down without him.

The father drops the children off with their uncle in Montana.  He is a somewhat famous artist and lets the kids kid of run wild.  The kids are friends with a local boy who is also somewhat on his own as his mother is a drunk.  The girl and this boy have an on again off again relationship over the years.

The uncle is a drinker and a gambler and basically gambles away the money he is given for the children's care.  One of the twins is a girl. She sees some barnstormers and decides she wants to become a pilot.  A local man, a rum runner (during prohibition) becomes enamoured with the girl and funds her flying lessons.  Eventually she marries him, feeling grateful for what he has done for her and because he bailed her uncle out of his debts.  The marriage does not go well.  She feels trapped, he no longer wants her to fly and he wants her to have a child and she doesn't want to. Eventually she flees to Alaska and sets up a flying business.  Shes always fears her husband will find her.

Her brother leaves Montana for the coast and makes a living sketching people in parks. One day he meets a girl who introduces him to her father.  Her father wants him to paint the girl and also catalogue his art collection.  The man makes his money from meat.  When he finds out the young man is vegetarian he kicks him out.  The young woman and young man are in love, the brother is devastated at the loss of his love.  The girl eventually marries someone else.

The other story takes place in the present, an actress is starring in a series of movies.  She is fired from the series when she is publicly seen out in public with another actor.  The director and writer of the series feel she has damaged the "brand".  The young woman is then offered a role in the story of the female pilot who was lost trying to circumnavigate the globe.  The actress is interested as she had read a book about the woman as a child.

The story gives more details in both women's lives.  In the end the actress is introduced to a person who has more information about the pilot because she is a relative.  It turns out that they pilot's brother an the woman he loved did hook up during WWII while the woman's husband was fighting in the war.  She got pregnant with his child. The pilot's brother was working for the U.S. military painting images of the war.  His sister thought he would be safe as an artist but he ends up getting killed while traveling during the war.

The information the actress receives indicates that the woman pilot did not die after all but reinvented her life again in Australia after crashing her plane near and island.  Her childhood friend apparently visited her in Australia but they never married.  She left her estate to her dead brother's love child.

It was an interesting story with the two intertwined lives but was a bit slow going at times.  The ending was an interesting surprise. 

As far as I am concerned this is not the best book nominated for the Booker this year, it will be interesting to see which one wins.  I will have read most of the books on the shortlist soon.