Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

Amy  

historical fiction, fiction

In Great Circle, Hadley is a current day actress starring in a movie in which she portrays Marian. Marian had been a female pilot who began flying as a young teenager in 1930. She disappeared during her attempt at flying a great circle around the Earth. (At the beginning, the author explains that a great circle is the largest circular cross-section, in the exact center, of a sphere.)   Mostly focused on these two characters’ points of view with the story flowing between their two timeframes, Hadley and Marian happen to share the commonalities that they were both unconventionally raised by their uncles, both are adventurers at heart, both wanted to make something of themselves, and both had trouble starting their journeys. The story is, at its core, an epic family drama of Marian’s family, beginning with her parents and playing forward, mostly chronologically.

The summary above does not relay the depth and beauty of this novel. It is a love letter to travel, adventure, and freedom. There are several different stories centered around travel—on land, sea, and air—and modes of transportation. Marian’s attempt at flying a great circle is not the only circling aspect of this story. The whole novel actually comes full circle—with several pieces coming back around to close the circle with connections. Great Circle includes a lot of death-induced situations where people step up to support those who need it. There is grand adventure but mostly in small towns and hidden places. While there isn’t a lot of explicit sex, a good bit of this novel involves sex. Sex is almost another character. It is a weapon, a trap, a tool, a strategy, a compulsion, an outlet, an escape, a duty, a distraction, and a connection.

I really enjoyed Maggie Shipstead’s writing. Her novel was somehow both circumventive—telling a story by circling around it—and direct. There were many different tales yet they were linked. Shipstead would sometimes diverge into broader histories of time. For example, she explained the history of an area of the country since the beginning of time and made that fit into the big picture. I couldn’t wait to find out where Shipstead was going to take things. She would write of circumstances before they were fully explained, thereby allowing the reader to try to figure out how the puzzle pieces would fit together.

None of the characters were particularly loveable at first but they all grew on me. They felt authentic. I loved the way characters’ connections were woven skillfully throughout. I especially appreciated how the beginning of each chapter began with a contextual relationship of time to prior sections. Whereas most novels that span large periods of time simply put a date at the beginning of each chapter, Shipstead added the amount of time that had elapsed. For example, “Missoula, May 1927, Three months later” and “England, June 1944, Six months after the torpedo”. This was exceptionally helpful since I was listening to the audiobook and it’s never easy to remember time periods when you can’t just flip back to the last chapter and see its date compared to the current chapter. I truly wish every novel did this.

Also, there was an originality of storyline that I don’t see very often after reading so many books. This novel kept sparking little subterranean points of light within me because it felt like this entire story was brand new. Yes I’d read about female fighter pilots before, yes I’d read plenty of WWII stories (and this isn’t really a WWII story, by the way), yes almost every novel is about relationships, but Great Circle felt “other” and special. I can’t quite define what was so wonderful about it which means that Shipstead was masterful and subtle in her brilliance.  

While not quick-paced, it was perfectly compelling most of the time. There were sections that went on for much too long (the mushroom scene, for example) and I also felt the novel could have done without so many long sections about snowy or oceanic nothingness. I felt the ending was anticlimactic but appropriate. Still, it left me feeling that it didn’t meet the greatness of the rest of the novel.

I was lucky enough to have both the Kindle and audiobook versions from the library so I could swap from one to the other as needed.  The audiobook was narrated by two women, Cassandra Campbell telling Marian’s story and Alex McKenna telling Hadley’s story.  I enjoyed their voice acting. I would’ve liked more variety in Campbell’s repertoire of voices and she also had a robotic voice when not reading about specific characters which was a bummer. But I’ll give them an A- as an ensemble.