With prose as gorgeous and rich as the Kenyan landscape, Paula McClain gives us a novel about the early life of Beryl Markham -- a record-making horse trainer and aviator. McClain brilliantly portrays Markham as a woman of independence and gumption, not only for 1920's Colonial Africa, but one who could be at home in 2015 as well. She is flawed, she has ambition, she makes mistakes, she's talented and looks fear in the eye, she's unlucky in love, she falls down and gets back up again.

Perhaps the best aspect of this novel is that McClain gives full due to all her characters. No one in the supporting cast is stilted and one-note. Each is a complex person, with considerable humanity.

4.5 enthusiastic stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
(Print: 7/28/2015; 978-0345534187; Ballantine Books; 1st edition; 384 pages )
(Digital: Yes.)
Audio: 7/28/2015; 9780307989932; Penguin Random House Audio Publishing; Duration 12:05:38 (10 parts); Unabridged.
(Film: No).

SERIES:
No

CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
Beryl Clutterbuck (Markham) – Protagonist whose life we follow
Charles Clutterbuck – Beryl’s father
Clara Agnes (Alexander) Cluterbuck – Beryl’s mother
Jock Purves – Beryl’s 1st husband
Denys Finch Hatton – A love interest of Beryl’s as well as of Karen’s
Karen Blixen – A friend Beryl makes in her early 20’s in Africa (and author of “Out of Africa”.
Mansfield Markham – Beryl’s 2nd husband
Gervase Markham – Son with Mansfield

DEDICATION:
“For my family—with love and thanks for unending—and for Letti Ann Christoffersen who was my Lady D”

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
I can’t recall my inspiration for reading this. It’s possible I saw the cover and was intrigued, or that I had noticed it was by the author of “The Paris Wife” which I have not read, but it’s on my list.
This book is historical fiction—it is peopled by authentic personages, but the conversations and incidences come from the author’s imagination. I loved the writing, the location, and the strength of Beryl’s character.

AUTHOR:
Paula McLain 1965. According to Wikipedia, Paula “is an American author best known for her novel, The Paris Wife, a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway's first marriage[1] which became a long-time New York Times bestseller.[2] She has published two collections of poetry, a memoir about growing up in the foster system, and the novel A Ticket to Ride.”
NARRATOR(S): Katharine Lee McEwan. According to Wikipedia, Katharine “is an English actress, screenwriter, and film producer. She gained recognition in 2015 with the award-winning independent feature film Solitary, which she wrote and produced in addition to playing the lead role.”
At the end of this book was when I learned that the people actually existed and that the main character, Beryl, had actually written a memoir called West with the Night. I’ve begun listening to it, and instantly I missed Kathleen’s voice. She lends class and gentility to these characters.

GENRE:
Historical fiction, Literature

LOCATIONS:
Colonial British East Africa - Njoro, Kenya, Nairobi, Ngong Hills, London

TIME FRAME:
1904 - 1936

SUBJECTS:
Africa, horse training, romance, independence, African tribes, society, convention, willfulness’, marriage, piloting, Gull airplane, royalty, women’s roles

NARRATIVE STYLE:
1st Person

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter Part One

Chapter 1:
“Before Kenya was Kenya, when it was millions of years old and yet still somehow new, the name belonged only to our most magnificent mountain. You could see it from our farm in Njoro, in the British East African Portectorate—hard edged at the far end of a stretching golden plain, its crown glazed with ice that never completely melted. Behind us, the Mau Forest was blue with strings of mist. Before us, the Rongai Valley sloped down and away, bordered on one side by the strange, high Menengai Crater, which the natives called the Mountain of God, and on the other by the distant Aberdare Range, rounded blue-grey hills that went smoky and purple at dusk before dissolving into the night sky.
When we first arrived, in 1904, the farm wasn’t anything but fifteen hundred acres of untouched bush and three weather-beaten huts.
‘This?’ my mother said, the air around her humming and shimmering as if it were alive, ‘You sold everything for this?’
‘Other farmers are making a go of it in tougher places, Clara,’ my father said.
‘You’re not a farmer, Charles!’ she spat before bursting into tears.”

RATING:
5 stars. Wonderfully written.

STARTED-FINISHED
5/19/21 – 5/30/21
( )

Good book but the woman's flying story doesn't even come up until the last few chapters. It feels like the author wrote a book that was twice as long and the editor chopped out the last half, and then slapped the last two chapters at the end. ( )

Remarkable story based on real person, Beryl Markham?s life as a feminist in Africa. KIRKUS REVIEWA full-throttle dive into the psyche and romantic attachments of Beryl Markham„whose 1936 solo flight across the Atlantic in a two-seater prop plane (carrying emergency fuel in the extra seat) transfixed the world.As conceived in this second historical by novelist McLain (The Paris Wife, 2011, etc.), Markham„nee Beryl Clutterbuck„is the neglected daughter of an impecunious racehorse trainer who fails to make a go at farming in British East Africa and a feckless, squeamish mother who bolts back to England with their older son. Set on her own two feet early, she is barely schooled but precociously brave and wired for physical challenges„a trait honed by her childhood companion Kibii (a lifelong friend and son of a local chief). In the Mau forest„?before Kenya was Kenya?„she finds a ?heaven fitted exactly to me.? Keeping poised around large mammals (a leopard and a lion also figure significantly) is in her blood and later gains her credibility at the racecourse in Nairobi, where she becomes the youngest trainer ever licensed. Statuesque, blonde, and carrying an air of self-sufficiency„she marries, disastrously, at 16 but is granted a separation to train Lord Delamere?s bloodstock„Beryl turns heads among the cheerfully doped and dissolute Muthaiga Club set (?I don?t know what it is about Africa, but champagne is absolutely compulsory here?), charms not one but two heirs to the British crown at Baroness Karen Blixen?s soiree, and sets her cap on Blixen?s lover, Denys Fitch Hatton. She?ll have him, too, and much enjoyment derives from guessing how that script, and other intrigues, will play out in McLain?s retelling. Fittingly, McLain has Markham tell her story from an altitude of 1,800 feet: ?I?m meant to do this,? she begins, ?stitch my name on the sky.? Popularly regarded as ?a kind of Circe? (to quote Isak Dinesen biographer Judith Thurman), the young woman McLain explores owns her mistakes (at least privately) and is more boxed in by class, gender assumptions, and self-doubt than her reputation as aviatrix, big game hunter, and femme fatale suggests.Ernest Hemingway, who met Markham on safari two years before her Atlantic crossing, tagged her as ?a high-grade bitch? but proclaimed her 1942 memoir West with the Night ?bloody wonderful.? Readers might even say the same of McLain?s sparkling prose and sympathetic reimagining.

Very enjoyable fictionalized account of Beryl Markham. Now to re-read West With the Night! ( )