Great Circle

Great Circle revolves around two women I found fascinatingly complex—twentieth-century aviator Marian Graves, bent on circling the globe via the poles, and twenty-first-century actor Hadley Baxter, who struggles to capture the ineffable Marian in a Hollywood biopic.

I was blown away by the geographical and historical scope of Shipstead’s book, darting from Glasgow to Missoula, London to Alaska, from the opening of the American West through the days of Prohibition and the Second World War to contemporary Hollywood.

The cast of characters is equally huge, deftly developed, often eccentric, always interesting. For sheer societal scope, I was reminded of James… show more.

This astonishing novel weaves together the stories of two disparate women. One is a modern-day movie actress with a tendency to self-sabotage. The other is a driven aviation pioneer of the early 20th Century.

The title refers to the latter’s final goal: to become the first person to fly a great circle around the world, intersecting both poles. Spoiler alert— her airplane disappeared somewhere near Antarctica in 1950. As the actress researches the aviator’s life to play her in a film, new details are discovered that inform and enrich both their lives.

Somehow, the book works as well-researched historical fiction… show more.

Marian Graves is one of the bravest, most determined, adventurous and independent characters I’ve come across. She’s the kind of woman I’d like to befriend.

She falls in love with flight at a young age and defies all manner of obstacles to live the life of a tearaway aviator in the early 1900s. Although it’s fiction, Great Circle taught me a lot about early aviation, which I hadn’t anticipated could be so interesting. I am outdoorsy. You’ll find me in the mountains with my dogs every day. As such, I loved reading about Marian’s home in mountainous Montana. 

Great Circle tells the story of Marian Graves who, born in 1914, falls in love with flight at a young age and, despite difficult circumstances, is determined to chart her own course in life as one of the world’s earliest female aviators.

I loved Marian’s passion for planes and flying and her determination to circumnavigate the world by flying over the North and South Poles. It’s an epic novel, which weaves in the present-day story of actor, Hadley Baxter who is cast to play Marian in a film about her disappearance in Antarctica.

I thoroughly enjoyed following the lives of… show more.

I was transfixed by this epic novel, which reimagines the extraordinary life of an early female aviator, based on real pilots like Amelia Earhart, Beryl Markham, Eleanor Smith, and Jackie Cochran.

The novel spans Prohibition-era Montana, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, New Zealand, wartime London, and modern-day Los Angeles. Great Circle tells the remarkable story of a daredevil female aviator, who achieves her dream to fly around the world, despite all the challenges she faces. A true heroine I will never forget. 

Great Circle tells the life story of Marian Graves, a fictional woman aviator who went missing in 1950 while attempting to circumnavigate the globe via the North and South Poles.

I’m married to a pilot, so I recognized Marian’s love of flight and her willingness to take risks and make sacrifices to excel in aviation. But the real reason I loved the book is that forgoing motherhood—having children in the 1930s and 1940s would keep a woman out of the cockpit for good—isn’t framed as a sacrifice for Marion.

The life she wants to live simply doesn’t include children. Marion’s… show more.