Flying Jenny

March 15, 2018

Tabloid newspaper reporter Laura Bailey is sent by her boss to cover an audacious stunt: a pilot is attempting to fly under the four bridges that link Manhattan to the outer boroughs. Laura quickly learns that the pilot is female, a rare occurrence in 1929. Jenny Flynn, a contemporary of Amelia Earhart, enjoys the freedom of flying but has no desire to be famous like Earhart. Laura and Jenny soon clash, as Laura wants the scoop on these daring women of the sky, and Jenny wants to be left alone. The Women's Air Derby and the National Air Races of 1929 form the backdrop of this story of women and the early days of aviation. However, the central relationship between Laura and Jenny never jells, even as the author alternates chapters from each perspective, their voices never become distinct. VERDICT While full of rich material that could make for an exciting historical, Tuohy's (Five O'Clock Follies) novel suffers from amateurish and clunky writing, as the author tells more than shows and overstuffs the narrative with unnecessary details.--Lynnanne Pearson, Skokie P.L., IL

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2018
Two brave women battle to live how they choose and become friends in the process.Set in 1929, this is a story of female friendship and empowerment, a story of self-discovery. In an era when Marlene Dietrich caused a stir for wearing pants, women are trying their hands, for the first time, in malecentric fields. Jenny is a gifted pilot but is not interested in competition and record-breaking, preferring instead to fly when she feels like it and otherwise live her life. When she successfully pulls a stunt no one has tried before--flying under all of New York City's bridges--another woman-in-a-man's-world becomes interested in her. Laura is a reporter, fiercely ambitious and willing to follow Jenny to the Midwest in order to get her story. But she has another reason to want to poke around near St. Louis: Her mother is mute on the subject of her father, but Laura has a photograph that proves her mother was in that area when she was young. Laura hopes to find her roots. At first Laura and Jenny clash, but over the course of the novel, as Laura experiences the joys of flying, the two women come to understand one another and to learn from each other. The prose has a tendency to overexplain, in platitudes, who the characters are and how they are feeling. For example, Laura's bohemian mother lives in the West Village and has an affair with William Carlos Williams; to describe her, Tuohy (The Five O'Clock Follies, 2012) writes, "Free was Evelyn's favorite word." For a novel about an exhilarating experience during an exciting era in American history, it tends toward the unimaginative and is often repetitive.What should be dramatic is made dull in this historical novel.

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April 15, 2018
In 1929, a female journalist is a novelty, but Laura's bohemian upbringing?her mother has never even revealed her father's name?prepared her well for going against the grain. She's amazed, then, when covering the story of a female stunt pilot, to find that this sister anomaly seems anything but different. Jenny is from a country club family and seems prouder of being devoted to her husband than of being able to barrel roll the war plane she loves to fly. The two women have trouble finding common ground during the interview, but a string of circumstances convinces Laura to follow Jenny cross-country in search of a bigger story. Along the way, Laura urges Jenny to acknowledge her dream of flying; Jenny helps Laura search for her father, and the women eventually find commonality in staring down the sexist mechanisms of the time, each in her own way. Tuohy uses fun period details and jargon to create a lively 1920s setting for this story about self-discovery, friendship, and upsetting the patriarchy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)