CIRCLING THE SUN, by Paula McLain is published by Ballentine Books in 2015. The setting Kenya and Europe. The time starts in 1932 with the prologue but jumps back to 1904 and as the author writes " Before Kenya was Kenya...". The heroine one 4 year old who moves from England with her family to the British East African Protectorate, her name Beryl Clutterbuck.
This story is a historical fiction about Beryl Markham and the life she lived as a single, sometimes married, independent woman in the early 1900's. Headstrong and unwilling to be compromised, she left most men bewildered by her inability to be feminine or controlled. She becomes a horse trainer after years watching her father and training. She becomes an aviator and circumnavigates the world. Many misfortunes befall her, but she picks herself up and continues.
The author Paula McLain does a wonderful job with scenery and the story line, citing the many books she read to understand Beryl Markham. This research included a book that Beryl Markham wrote about herself called West with the Night, written in 1942. A book that Ernest Hemingway proclaimed as a "... really a bloody wonderful book."
I was so enthralled with CIRCLING THE SUN, that I read it in three days. It is wonderfully written from scenery to emotions that I could not put it down. It also made me want to read other works about Beryl Markham, so I purchased West with the Night which was republished in 1983, my copy is a paperback published in 2013. I will review this as soon as I finish the autobiography.
-------------------------------------------
I am still reading The Golden Notebook, but had put it aside because I needed a brief break. It will be done before August ends.
