The narrative is split between Marian Graves, who disappeared in 1950 while trying to fly the globe, and Hollywood star Hadley Baxter, who in 2010s <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/los-angeles/index.html">LA </a>has just sent her career spiralling with an intentionally scandalous hook-up.When Hadley is offered the role of the daring aviatrix in a forthcoming film, she immediately notices the parallels: both were orphaned and raised by their uncles. As women navigating courses through men’s worlds, however, the similarities go beyond the superficial.This is a sweepingly panoramic novel with equally expansive themes — courage, independence, love, art — whose backdrop is the history of aviation itself.

LITERARY FICTION 

By Stephanie Cross for the Daily Mail
 22:00 13 May 2021, updated 22:00 13 May 2021<figure><img src="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/05/13/21/42960878-0-image-a-55_1620936680783.jpg" width="781" height="469"></figure><UL><LI>0
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 </LI></UL>GREAT CIRCLE<div>ADVERTISEMENT</div>by Maggie Shipstead (Doubleday £16.99, 602 pp)At more than 600 pages, Great Circle does indeed boast an impressive girth.The narrative is split between Marian Graves, who disappeared in 1950 while trying to fly the globe, and Hollywood star Hadley Baxter, who in 2010s <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/los-angeles/index.html" dir="ltr">LA</a> has just sent her career spiralling with an intentionally scandalous hook-up.When Hadley is offered the role of the daring aviatrix in a forthcoming film, she immediately notices the parallels: both were orphaned and raised by their uncles. As women navigating courses through men’s worlds, however, the similarities go beyond the superficial.This is a sweepingly panoramic novel with equally expansive themes — courage, independence, love, art — whose backdrop is the history of aviation itself.Having first taken to the skies in a propeller-powered biplane, Marian earns her wings flying illicit missions for her bootlegger lover and, when war engulfs the world, volunteers in England as a Spitfire delivery pilot.Yes, this immersive saga could have been shorter but, really, you wouldn’t want it to be.<figcaption>SECOND PLACE by Rachel Cusk (Faber £14.99, 224 pp)</figcaption>SECOND PLACEby Rachel Cusk (Faber £14.99, 224 pp)Fans of Cusk’s Outline trilogy will be happy to learn that Second Place continues in a not dissimilar vein. Once again, the narrator is a Cusk-like author (in this case ‘M’), who lives with her preternaturally equanimous second husband and daughter in a house on a scenic marsh.M decides to invite L, an artist whose work fascinates her, to stay so that he can paint the spectacular landscape. But when L turns up with his much younger girlfriend, M’s plans are thrown into disarray — and not for the last time, as it turns out.As M explains, she has spent much of her life occupying second place herself, and questions of self-realisation, freedom and will preoccupy her.<div>ADVERTISEMENT</div>However, Cusk’s febrile, sporadically brilliant psychodrama is destabilised by comedy as L’s behaviour becomes ever more outrageous. The result is a compelling alchemy, to which the revelation that L’s antics are closely based on D H Lawrence’s adds surprisingly little.<figcaption>THE RULES OF REVELATION by Lisa McInerney (John Murray £14.99, 352 pp)</figcaption>THE RULES OF REVELATIONby Lisa McInerney (John Murray £14.99, 352 pp)Lisa McInerney burst on to the scene in 2015 with her Women’s Prize-winning debut, The Glorious Heresies, which first introduced readers to drug dealer Ryan and the love of his life, Karine.Its Italian mafia-featuring successor, The Blood Miracles, was no less gripping, but this final instalment of McInerney’s trilogy fails to find the higher gears.Back in Ireland after a spell of exile, Ryan has reinvented himself as the frontman of Lord Urchin, a combo whose reality is never particularly convincing.But his is not the only homecoming: sex worker Georgie, whom Ryan had previously forced to flee to London on pain of death, is also back in town — and out for revenge.It’s perhaps unfair to expect a novel that’s largely about past history to quicken the pulse, and McInerney’s observations on both gender politics and Ireland’s perpetual identity crisis remain acute. But this never really transcends the sense that it exists principally to tie up loose ends.<div>ADVERTISEMENT</div>To buy any book reviewed here, visit mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3308 9193<div dir="ltr">
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At more than 600 pages, Great Circle does indeed boast an impressive girth

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By Stephanie Cross for the Daily Mail

22:00 13 May 2021, updated 22:00 13 May 2021

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by Maggie Shipstead (Doubleday £16.99, 602 pp)

At more than 600 pages, Great Circle does indeed boast an impressive girth.

The narrative is split between Marian Graves, who disappeared in 1950 while trying to fly the globe, and Hollywood star Hadley Baxter, who in 2010s <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/los-angeles/index.html">LA </a>has just sent her career spiralling with an intentionally scandalous hook-up.

When Hadley is offered the role of the daring aviatrix in a forthcoming film, she immediately notices the parallels: both were orphaned and raised by their uncles. As women navigating courses through men’s worlds, however, the similarities go beyond the superficial.

This is a sweepingly panoramic novel with equally expansive themes — courage, independence, love, art — whose backdrop is the history of aviation itself.

Having first taken to the skies in a propeller-powered biplane, Marian earns her wings flying illicit missions for her bootlegger lover and, when war engulfs the world, volunteers in England as a Spitfire delivery pilot.

Yes, this immersive saga could have been shorter but, really, you wouldn’t want it to be.

by Rachel Cusk (Faber £14.99, 224 pp)

Fans of Cusk’s Outline trilogy will be happy to learn that Second Place continues in a not dissimilar vein. Once again, the narrator is a Cusk-like author (in this case ‘M’), who lives with her preternaturally equanimous second husband and daughter in a house on a scenic marsh.

M decides to invite L, an artist whose work fascinates her, to stay so that he can paint the spectacular landscape. But when L turns up with his much younger girlfriend, M’s plans are thrown into disarray — and not for the last time, as it turns out.

As M explains, she has spent much of her life occupying second place herself, and questions of self-realisation, freedom and will preoccupy her.

However, Cusk’s febrile, sporadically brilliant psychodrama is destabilised by comedy as L’s behaviour becomes ever more outrageous. The result is a compelling alchemy, to which the revelation that L’s antics are closely based on D H Lawrence’s adds surprisingly little.

THE RULES OF REVELATION

by Lisa McInerney (John Murray £14.99, 352 pp)

Lisa McInerney burst on to the scene in 2015 with her Women’s Prize-winning debut, The Glorious Heresies, which first introduced readers to drug dealer Ryan and the love of his life, Karine.

Its Italian mafia-featuring successor, The Blood Miracles, was no less gripping, but this final instalment of McInerney’s trilogy fails to find the higher gears.

Back in Ireland after a spell of exile, Ryan has reinvented himself as the frontman of Lord Urchin, a combo whose reality is never particularly convincing.

But his is not the only homecoming: sex worker Georgie, whom Ryan had previously forced to flee to London on pain of death, is also back in town — and out for revenge.

It’s perhaps unfair to expect a novel that’s largely about past history to quicken the pulse, and McInerney’s observations on both gender politics and Ireland’s perpetual identity crisis remain acute. But this never really transcends the sense that it exists principally to tie up loose ends.

To buy any book reviewed here, visit mailshop.co. uk/books or call 020 3308 9193

LITERARY FICTION

LITERARY FICTION

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