2021布克獎決選作品
看一位勇敢的女性飛行員,挑戰環遊世界、航出自己的人生
1914年,一對雙胞胎嬰兒-瑪麗安與傑米幸運地被人從船難救出,送往蒙大拿州叔叔家扶養。多年後,看著一架架老舊的飛機行經鄉鎮上空,小女孩瑪麗安的心似乎也跟著盤旋上那片廣袤無垠的藍空中。她暗自決定將飛行員當成人生目標。再過幾年,我們看見瑪麗安輟學,找到了一個願意贊助她達成夢想的人。儘管貴人是個不甚可靠的私酒商,但他不僅提供飛機也資助飛行課程,將瑪麗安送上了夢寐以求的天空,推往她人生最終的目的地-南北極。
一個世紀後,好萊塢推出瑪麗安的傳記電影,由當紅女星海德麗主演。拍完一系列炙手可熱的愛情電影,海德麗正處於粉絲追捧的中心,這份突如其來的名氣卻禁錮了她。海德麗想要重新找回自己、證明實力,而瑪麗安的角色正是她需要的契機。瑪麗安消失在南極洲時,海德麗雖然還小,但卻對這位偉大的女性飛行員並不陌生,她埋首於飛行員的人生故事中。橫跨時間與空間的維度,兩個亟欲證明自己的慾望與命運的女人在此交會,擋在她們眼前的是社會與群眾給予的枷鎖。而最終她們又將如何攜手衝破突圍,找出屬於自己的真正風景?
(文/博客來外文館)
Spanning Prohibition-era Montana, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, New Zealand, wartime London, and modern-day Los Angeles, Great Circle tells the unforgettable story of a daredevil female aviator determined to chart her own course in life, at any cost.
After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There--after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes--Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles.
A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian's disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian's own story, as the two women's fates--and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times--collide. Epic and emotional, meticulously researched and gloriously told, Great Circle is a monumental work of art, and a tremendous leap forward for the prodigiously gifted Maggie Shipstead.