Circling the Sun
By Paula McClain
The beginning of this book, with Beryl Markham taking off
for the first transatlantic flight from England to the United States, with her
engine failing and her plane hurtling through the air, made me think. Oh.
Another tragic book of life lost, of early flight.
I was wrong. Circling
the Sun flies not only on those frightening, early flights but also through the
life of this extraordinary woman. Her
story begins in colonial Kenya in 1920, when Africa was untouched and unsullied. We learn of Beryl as the child left behind, the
daughter chosen to stay with her father as he tries his hand at farming and,
his specialty, training thoroughbreds. Beryl runs wild in the jungle and learns
the ways of the Kip tribe, to hunt, to respect the land, to respect the
creatures.
She grows into a beautiful young woman whose passion for
life leads her into the inner circle of Ex-pats living in Africa. Her love of the continent, the horses, and
the people who love it, especially the one who is completely out of her reach, with
her mesmerizes the reader into a longing for a simple harshness that only true
pioneers can understand. McClain exceeds
her work in The Paris Wife with the
telling of this remarkable woman’s triumphs and tragedies. The first person accounting lets her readers fly
with Beryl. I highly recommend Circling
the Sun. Especially if you want to know
how that transatlantic flight comes out.
I received this book from NetGalley for
this review.
No comments:
Post a Comment