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A review by nothingforpomegranted
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is one of those books that I can already tell I will be thinking about for a long time to come. It has so many elements that I love in my literary fiction, and reading it rekindled some of the things that I love the most about reading. This year, I have delved deep into romance novels, which I absolutely love, but I love being a reader because of books like this.
Multiple perspectives from a close third-person narrator, multiple timelines, spanning decades, and covering countless themes in a beautifully interwoven plot.
The balance between the two timelines was perfect. I loved both characters and was curious about both of them, but I was far more engrossed in Marian's life, and spending more time with her and all of the complicated details of her backstory felt exactly right.
The primary timeline follows Marian from before her birth to her death. Her conception (and that of her twin brother) was the result of a one-night stand by a ship captain and a woman hoping to push her father's boundaries. Seeming post-partum depression paired with an accident on the boat leads to the death of Marian's mother, though she and Jamie are saved as infants by their father, who is shocked by his commitment to saving his babies over saving his men. When their father is sentenced to prison for abandoning his ship, the twins are sent to Montana to live with his estranged brother, Wallace. Jamie and Marian grow up together, alongside neighbor, Caleb, utterly devoted and connected to each other as they explore the ranch, the wilderness, and discover their love for nature and pursuit of infinity, Jamie as a painter and Marian as a pilot.
Marian becomes fascinated by flying as a child, and she is absolutely determined to become a pilot. Forced to earn her own money to pay for lessons (because her uncle is a gambler), Marian dresses as a boy to run deliveries for a local bootlegger. On her route, she attracts the attention of an incredibly wealthy bootlegger who becomes her patron, motivated by obsession. This man ends up making deal after deal with Marian, which she accepts because of her desperation to fly, and ultimately she finds herself entwined in a hopeless marriage with only the occasional outlets of communication with Jamie and Caleb and flying even more rarely.
Marian eventually escapes to Alaska. Her husband dies. The war begins. She joins the ATA flyers as a transport pilot. After the war, she is approached by the widow of the man who smuggled firearms on the ship her father captained so many years ago. Motivated by guilt, this widow decides to sponsor Marian on a flight in a great circle all the way around the world, and thus begins what is supposedly the most significant portion of the story.
Of course, all of the background is even more significant as a reader who is desperate to know as much as she can about this fantastically structured and developed character. Sure, in this fictional universe, Marian Graves is intriguing because of her disappearance in 1950 on her flight around the world, and it is because of that part of her story that Hadley Baxter is hired to play Marian in a biopic about her life.
Hadley, the modern day character, lost her own parents in a plane accident and, like Marian, was raised by a complicated uncle, whose penchant for drugs and spending made for a wild, unsupported childhood, even as she found success in films. Hadley is uncertain of nearly every relationship in her life and processes most of her relationships by having sex, though she always feels icky about it afterwards. However, over the course of the film, Hadley becomes more and more invested in Marian's story,eventually making the unbelievable discovery that Marian didn't die in Antarctica after all. Rather, as is revealed through both timelines, after a series of bad storms and hypothermic incidents and a conversation with Eddie, Marian's navigator and the gay husband of Ruth, Marian's wartime lover, in which he insists that they will not make it all the way around their great circle, that his greatest fear is drowning, and that Marian should leave him behind in Antarctica to die, no matter what she does herself, Marian makes it all the way to New Zealand. I have chills just writing this summary, far less beautifully than Maggie Shipstead's elaborate, well-crafted prose. In New Zealand, Marian recreates herself once again, living as a man and eventually, once again, as a woman, an entrepreneurial sheep farmer. Hadley makes this discovery when she identifies Marian's handwriting on a note to Caleb, with whom Marian stayed in touch and in love for her entire life.
Wow, this is probably the longest summary I've ever written of a book in my review. I want to keep all of the details easily accessible because it was shocking how much Maggie Shipstead managed to pack into this book without it feeling like it was dragging on (even though it was 670 pages). There are so many things missing from the summary--Jamie's painting and love story, the details of the war, the relationship with Caleb, the horrors of Marian's marriage, nearly everything about Hadley--but the feelings of this book were so intense. I had chills over and over again, and I was mesmerized by the structure. These two women were inextricably tied, though their lives were so different. I honestly already want to read this again. Wow.
Multiple perspectives from a close third-person narrator, multiple timelines, spanning decades, and covering countless themes in a beautifully interwoven plot.
The balance between the two timelines was perfect. I loved both characters and was curious about both of them, but I was far more engrossed in Marian's life, and spending more time with her and all of the complicated details of her backstory felt exactly right.
The primary timeline follows Marian from before her birth to her death. Her conception (and that of her twin brother) was the result of a one-night stand by a ship captain and a woman hoping to push her father's boundaries. Seeming post-partum depression paired with an accident on the boat leads to the death of Marian's mother, though she and Jamie are saved as infants by their father, who is shocked by his commitment to saving his babies over saving his men. When their father is sentenced to prison for abandoning his ship, the twins are sent to Montana to live with his estranged brother, Wallace. Jamie and Marian grow up together, alongside neighbor, Caleb, utterly devoted and connected to each other as they explore the ranch, the wilderness, and discover their love for nature and pursuit of infinity, Jamie as a painter and Marian as a pilot.
Marian becomes fascinated by flying as a child, and she is absolutely determined to become a pilot. Forced to earn her own money to pay for lessons (because her uncle is a gambler), Marian dresses as a boy to run deliveries for a local bootlegger. On her route, she attracts the attention of an incredibly wealthy bootlegger who becomes her patron, motivated by obsession. This man ends up making deal after deal with Marian, which she accepts because of her desperation to fly, and ultimately she finds herself entwined in a hopeless marriage with only the occasional outlets of communication with Jamie and Caleb and flying even more rarely.
Marian eventually escapes to Alaska. Her husband dies. The war begins. She joins the ATA flyers as a transport pilot. After the war, she is approached by the widow of the man who smuggled firearms on the ship her father captained so many years ago. Motivated by guilt, this widow decides to sponsor Marian on a flight in a great circle all the way around the world, and thus begins what is supposedly the most significant portion of the story.
Of course, all of the background is even more significant as a reader who is desperate to know as much as she can about this fantastically structured and developed character. Sure, in this fictional universe, Marian Graves is intriguing because of her disappearance in 1950 on her flight around the world, and it is because of that part of her story that Hadley Baxter is hired to play Marian in a biopic about her life.
Hadley, the modern day character, lost her own parents in a plane accident and, like Marian, was raised by a complicated uncle, whose penchant for drugs and spending made for a wild, unsupported childhood, even as she found success in films. Hadley is uncertain of nearly every relationship in her life and processes most of her relationships by having sex, though she always feels icky about it afterwards. However, over the course of the film, Hadley becomes more and more invested in Marian's story,
Wow, this is probably the longest summary I've ever written of a book in my review. I want to keep all of the details easily accessible because it was shocking how much Maggie Shipstead managed to pack into this book without it feeling like it was dragging on (even though it was 670 pages). There are so many things missing from the summary--Jamie's painting and love story, the details of the war, the relationship with Caleb, the horrors of Marian's marriage, nearly everything about Hadley--but the feelings of this book were so intense. I had chills over and over again, and I was mesmerized by the structure. These two women were inextricably tied, though their lives were so different. I honestly already want to read this again. Wow.