By Maggie Shipstead (Amazon's #8 Best Book of 2021) ★★★★★
At its core, Great Circle details the life of fictional aviator Marian Graves, a woman growing up in the early 1900s and determined to fly airplanes at a time when women, quite simply, didn’t. The telling of Marian’s life story from early childhood through adulthood is occasionally interrupted by glimpses into the life of modern day actress Hadley Baxter, a former child star whose career unravels following a scandal. Hadley agrees to play the unknown Marian in a biopic as a way to reboot her career, and she starts to learn about Marian’s life along with us readers.
Marian is interesting and complex. She’s laser-focused on flying and that acts as her center for almost every life decision she makes. She has a turbulent life, filled with early childhood tragedy, identity challenges, and abusive and controlling relationships. Societal restrictions force her to be more brash and determined than she might otherwise have been, and that creates a hard veneer that ultimately leads to a lot of isolation and introspection for her. Several times in her life she needs to make a choice between something that would benefit herself (and her flying) but would hurt a family member or friend; she most often chooses herself, and that self-centered determination is both disappointing and somewhat admirable. Because of that, you root for her, but maybe with a bit of reluctance. Perhaps that’s part of the reason I wasn’t clamoring to finish this one.
Time has allowed me to step back a bit and appreciate what a really thoughtful and well-crafted novel Great Circle is. While their lives and careers are starkly different, Shipstead’s juxtaposition of the societal expectations and challenges faced by Hadley 100 years after Marian is a really smart way to shine a light on (to put it bluntly) shit that women have to deal with that they shouldn’t have to, as if to say, “See? Some things never change”.
So why don’t I have this higher on the list? Mostly because it took a long time to get through. I liked the characters, I liked the writing, I liked the story, and I even liked the ending (a lot)...but before I got to that solid finish, I didn’t find myself clamoring to find out what would happen next. With the benefit of time, I have found myself remembering it fondly and appreciating it for the excellent piece of writing that it is.
Previous Best of 2021: #7 - The Push
Next Best of 2021: #5 - The Last Watch / The Exiled Fleet