Book Review: The Sound of Wings

A Fair Trade Book

(The picture shows the hardcover first edition, which is what I have. It came to me as the gem in a truckload of clinkers from a friend who knows nothing about books; it's actually a collector's item by now. The link is likely to go first to the more recent paperback edition--but I found the image of the hardcover book by clicking "Hardcover" on the page for the paperback.)

Title: The Sound of Wings

Author: Mary S. Lovell

Author's web site: http://www.lovellbiographies.com/

Date: 1989

Publisher: Century Hutchinson (UK), St Martin's (US)

ISBN: 0-312-03431-8 (US)

Length: 411 pages plus index

Illustrations: maps and black-and-white photos

Quote: “I realized that not only was George Putnam a fascinating person in his own right but also that if it had not been for him, Amelia would undoubtedly have dropped out of public awareness...So this story, which began as a biography of Amelia, has become the story of Amelia and George.”

Amelia Earhart's story has long appealed to a wide range of readers. Blonde, pretty, and a poet, Earhart chose to be known primarily as a pilot—not exactly “the Aviatrix” as which she was remembered, but one of a group of women whose interest in airplanes generated lots of publicity for the new, expensive, dangerous technology. (Lovell lists eight others in the U.S. who made headlines during the same years Earhart did.) Each of them set a few records in aviation. Then Earhart disappeared, becoming one of the world's mysteries; many wanted to believe she had faked her disappearance and was still living somewhere, probably in Japan, probably as a spy.

There was also her ambiguous status as a feminist heroine. She was one, of course, but the timing of her story complicated the story of women's history the 1970s feminist movement preferred: Despite the verifiable existence of discriminatory laws and employment policies that oppressed all women to some extent, the extent to which women were in fact oppressed varied widely. Earhart had trained as a nurse aide and social worker before some rich (male) publicists came up with the scheme of publicizing the “aviatrices.” Far from having to break down doors to get into the job that made her famous, because she was female, Earhart was recruited because she was female (and, some observed, she looked as if she might have been Charles Lindbergh's sister). She hadn't always dreamed of being a pilot; she had in fact said a plane exhibited at a fair was uninteresting; as a young woman she did all sorts of odd jobs for fun and money, and being a pilot happened to be the one for which she was most rewarded by other people.

She was, as Lovell explains in detail, heavily publicized because her husband happened to be a publisher. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was primarily a writer, not a pilot. Beryl Markham was both,but she was British. Earhart was more pilot than writer but Putnam saw to it that every publishable piece of writing she did was distributed and promoted. He also steered Earhart toward the most generous funders. Some accused him of having exploited her; Lovell attempts to prove that, despite their different personalities and talents, they were real partners-for-life.

“It is extremely difficult not to like Amelia,” Lovell observes of Earhart's personality. Earhart even had a sense of humor. Nevertheless, she “could be waspish, intolerant, and ill-humored, just like any of us.” Putnam was less charismatic. “People either loved or loathed George Putnam, and there is still no middle ground.”

The various funders who encouraged people like Earhart, Markham, Charles Lindbergh and the other pioneers in aviation, were to some extent in competition; they set the planes and pilots they funded in competition against one another. When Earhart and two men shared the work of flying across the Atlantic Ocean, a British editor sneered, “Compared with the solo flights of lady pilots as Lady Bailey and Lady Heath, the crossing of the Atlantic as a passenger does not seem to us to prove anything.” The aviators themselves seemed, like competing athletes, more generous. Mary Heath's reaction to Earhart's flight to England was “to tell you that if you phone me I'll throw down whatever I'm doing to come and fly with you or talk...Ring me!” They became friends, as did some of Earhart's other competitors. At the time Mary Heath, Elinor Smith, Richard Byrd, and several other people whose names have been forgotten, were also setting world's records with “first flight” headlines. They were free to like each other, as athletes are, yet their funding depended on being "first."

  

Lovell denies any attachment to any of the theories about Earhart's disappearance, but presents the facts that have been cited to support the credible ones, followed by the final radio log and several appendices.

The Sound of Wings is likely to appeal to anyone interested in U.S. history generally, in women's history in particular, or in aviation. If readers understand that there is not and will never be a satisfactory end to the story of Amelia Earhart, nothing else in this biography seems likely to disappoint them. Amazon readers generally rate this book high; one complaint was "I wish it could have had more pictures."

There are many pictures. If Amelia Earhart hadn't gravitated toward jobs that used her brain and education, she could have been a model. 

Then there's the grumpy feminist who resents the sympathetic attention Lovell gives Putnam. Well...some people still do loathe him, even now that his name exists primarily as a brand found on many good books.

Mary Lovell is still alive and writing biographies, though displaying the bare minimum about herself on the Internet. So this is a Fair Trade Book. For the now collectible hardcover first edition, the real-world price is lower, but this web site would have to charge $30. For the paperback edition, we can charge our usual price of $5 per book, $5 per package, $1 per online payment, from which we'll send $1 to Mary Lovell or a charity of her choice. If you insist on the hardcover, your total payment would be $35 or $36, Lovell or her charity will receive $3.50. If you order the paperback edition of The Sound of Wings together with, e.g., The Mitford Girls, you'd send $15 (U.S. postal money order, for which the post office will collect its own surcharge) or $16 via Paypal, and Lovell or her charity would get $2. And if you enjoy smoothly written, well documented biographies in a particularly fluent, international form of English (Lovell's narrative style doesn't call attention to itself as being "American" in England or "British" in the U.S.; she is British), check out her newer books at http://www.lovellbiographies.com/ .