The Flying Circus

May 25, 2015
If the only flying circus you know is Monty Python’s, then Crandall’s nostalgic recreation of the heyday of the barnstorming stunt pilots who crisscrossed the U.S. in the 1920s will come as an entertaining surprise. Gil Gilroy, a former WWI flyer, Cora Haviland, a penniless heiress, and Henry Schuler, a teenage orphan fleeing a crime back in his native Indiana, crash into one another—quite literally—at a rural crossroads and eventually transform themselves into an act, traveling from town to town, with Gus doing stunts in his Curtiss Jenny biplane, Cora doing stunts on her motorcycle, and Henry acting as their mechanic. The only thing they have in common is a past they are all trying to escape. Things go along fine until Henry sees Gus and Cora kissing and is blindsided with jealousy. The three of them up the ante and join an actual flying show of aero-acrobats, in which Cora becomes a wing-walker, constantly trying to devise more and more dangerous stunts to attract larger crowds to the show. Cora eventually graduates to air racer, but the combined secrets from their past threaten to destroy their future together. All too often, the drama in the skies is overshadowed by the melodrama on the ground. Despite this, Gil, Cora, and Henry make for a sturdy romantic trio, and this old-fashioned novel plays like a refreshed mash-up of William Faulkner’s Pylon and the 1970s Robert Redford vehicle The Great Waldo Pepper.

July 1, 2015

"Disaster lived by its own rules. Most times it crept up from behind, wiping out everything with a single blow, a bully and a coward. Lightning strikes." So begins Crandall's sophomore effort (after Whistling Past the Graveyard), a story centered on 1920s barnstorming pilots in the Midwest. Henry is the son of German immigrants, a reviled status in the years following World War I. On the run from his hometown, he seems unable to escape the guilt and shame of the shocking accusations that dog him. In his wanderings, Henry joins up with Gil, a war pilot who performs death-defying stunts around the country as a coping mechanism for his own survival struggles. Cora is from an established family and looking for adventure, having barely escaped an arranged marriage to another aristocrat. Beautiful and charming, she could prove the undoing of either man as the three fly closer to a disaster of their own making. VERDICT Though the subject matter of barnstorming is unusual and provides an arena for the author to explore the characters' interior landscapes, those emotional journeys are less than compelling. In spite of an exciting setting, the plot may not be fast paced enough to keep readers turning the pages. Crandall's acclaimed debut is a better choice for readers, with its emphasis of the civil rights movement and gothic coming-of-age themes.--Julia M. Reffner, Midlothian, VA

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.