Alice Jolly
Flight of Fancy
Great Circle
By Maggie Shipstead
Doubleday 779pp £16.99
Great Circle, which has been longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, is a novel of ambition and scope. It tells the story of Marian Graves, a fictional pioneering female pilot. The book follows Marian from the moment in 1914 when, as a baby, she is rescued from a sinking ship, through her childhood, disastrous marriage and adventures in the Second World War. It also charts her determination to fly, north–south, around the world, passing over both poles. Her aim is to ‘see as much as can be seen’ and to ‘measure my life against the dimensions of the planet’.
Troubled, contradictory, tough and authentic, Marian is both a woman of her time and a person who is constantly challenging and remaking the idea of what a woman can be. Shipstead’s account of Marian’s teenage years, spent in rural Montana with Wallace, her drunken artist uncle, is particularly compelling. The Prohibition world of moonshiners, bootleggers and brothels is lovingly re-created, as is the landscape of that region.
Around the story of Marian, Shipstead weaves numerous other narrative strands. Jamie, Marian’s twin brother, becomes an artist and her airborne quest for space and freedom is matched by his desire to achieve the same in his canvases: ‘He longed to communicate something not about trees but about
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Of the siblings Gwen and Augustus John, it is Augustus who has commanded most attention from collectors and connoisseurs.
Was he really the finer artist, asks Tanya Harrod, or is it time Gwen emerged from her brother’s shadow?
Tanya Harrod - Cut from the Same Canvas
Tanya Harrod: Cut from the Same Canvas - Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell
literaryreview.co.uk
As Apple has grown, one country above all has proved able to supply the skills and capacity it needs: China.
What compromises has Apple made in its pivot east? @carljackmiller investigates.
Carl Miller - Return of the Mac
Carl Miller: Return of the Mac - Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company by Patrick McGee
literaryreview.co.uk
We are saddened to hear of the death of Edmund White.
We've lifted the paywall on Richard Davenport-Hines's 2014 review of White's Paris memoir.
Richard Davenport-Hines - Scenes from a Literary Life
Richard Davenport-Hines: Scenes from a Literary Life - Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris by Edmund White
literaryreview.co.uk