Alaska from the right seat
Nobody Gets Out Alive
Leigh Newman isn’t a pilot, but if ever a person had aviation in their DNA, she qualifies. At age 3 weeks, Newman and her parents moved to Anchorage. Newman’s father owned a series of airplanes, and the family lived in a house on a lake, so floatplane flying was a staple of her childhood. It’s these experiences and many more that color her new collection of short stories, Nobody Gets Out Alive, published by Simon & Schuster. Taut and sometimes darkly humorous, the collection features women who deal with divorce, alcoholism, and personal trauma, but aviation is a recurring theme in supporting characters: a neighbor who comes to join a friend and two children on a weeklong fishing trip, only to strand his airplane; a friend who operates a hunting lodge but prefers to zip around in his helicopter; a pilot who loses his medical certificate and continues flying anyway. The stories illustrate—credibly and matter-of-factly—how aviation is woven into the fabric of life in the forty-ninth state. Newman did not earn a pilot certificate, but she likely has more hours in the right seat in Alaska than most of us. Nobody Gets Out Alive is available in hard copy and digital formats from Amazon and other retailers. —Jill W. Tallman
Two women’s fates
Great Circle
There has been a lot of buzz around New York Times bestselling novelist Maggie Shipstead’s third novel, Great Circle, especially about how meticulously researched the work is. And her aviation details do not disappoint. But be prepared to either read this 600-page book all at once or page back to catch up on who’s who and what’s happening in the novel. The story line employs the trope of parallel lives—two strong women from different points in time. Marian Graves is the daredevil pilot of the 1950s and Hadley Baxter is the actress hired to play the aviator in a movie 60 years later. And, as in other similar novels, Graves is lost on an ambitious flight with her male navigator during a pole-to-pole expedition (sound familiar?). The sections of the novel about flying—especially during World War II—are well done, and a pilot reader will be impressed with the detail and accuracy. While it veers off into some oddly placed topics—homosexuality, marriage for money, alcoholism, and poverty—the novel is an epic read. Just put your feet up and devote the next few days to its reading. Great Circle is available in hard copy and digital editions through Amazon and other retailers. —Julie Summers Walker
Forgotten adventure
The Great Air Race
When I think about writing my own novel, I get the feeling a high schooler gets when writing a research paper: fear of getting it wrong. The 60 pages of notes at the end of John Lancaster’s novel The Great Air Race gave me deep admiration for the new author, a former journalist. This is an exciting telling of a mostly forgotten air race, one that took place immediately after the end of the first world war and that Lancaster hypothesizes started our obsession with flight. The 1919 race involved many historic characters vying to become the “fastest man in America.” There’s Billy Mitchell in a de Havilland DH–4, “The Flying Parson” Belvin Maynard and his dog Trixie, war hero John Donaldson, and more flying from Mineola, New York, to San Francisco. Lancaster relates their exploits during the cross-country flights and adds one more adventure—his own. In 2019 Lancaster flew himself in his Flight Design CTLSi along the same route. Even with GPS, ATC, modern technology and airports, The Weather Channel, free coffee, and a folding bicycle in the left seat, Lancaster ran into many challenges, lending a reality to his storytelling. The Great Air Race was released in November 2022 by Liveright Publishing. —JSW
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