West With the Night by Beryl Markham, narrated by Anna Fields | 2005; originally published 1942 | Blackstone Audio | Audiobook $19.95
This beautifully written autobiography brings us the remarkable life story of Beryl Markham, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. Brought up on a farm in Kenya, Markham chose to stay in Africa when, at seventeen, her father lost their farm and went to Peru. She began an apprenticeship as a racehorse trainer which turned into a highly successful career. In her twenties, Markham gave up horses for airplanes and became the first woman in East Africa to be granted a commercial pilot’s license, piloting passengers and supplies in a small plane to remote corners of Africa. As rich and inspiring as when it was first written, West with the Night captures the spirit of a true pioneer woman.
I put this title on my to-read list because I generally enjoy memoirs, and this was recommended to me as a “classic” of the genre. I’m also making an effort to read more works by non-white authors, non-cis-male authors, and works set in places other than Europe or the U.S.; this author was a woman and most of her story takes place in Africa, so two out of three ain’t bad.
I admit to knowing nothing about the author, Beryl Markham, before beginning this book — but how could I have never heard of her? She was the first woman to fly from east-to-west nonstop across the Atlantic in 1936, and the first person ever to accomplish a solo flight from England to the Americas. To put that in perspective, the first ever east-to-west nonstop airplane flew from Ireland in 1928, and the first solo woman pilot flew in 1932.
You’d think that alone would make her famous; and it did, for a time. But aviation technology improvements soon made transatlantic flight commonplace, and many of the earliest pioneering pilots faded into obscurity — unless they, like Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh, either died or disappeared or suffered some other significant public catastrophe.
But Beryl Markham lived a fascinating life, much of which she describes in this book. She grew up in colonial British East Africa (Kenya) in the early 20th century. Much of her memoir deals with her time there as a child and young woman. She spent most of her time in her earliest years among local people, learning native languages and hunting techniques. She later helped her father manage a large farm and raise horses; her first career as an adult was training horses for racing. After she took up flying, she made a career out of helping wealthy hunters track elephants, which were at that time a still comparatively plentiful yet dangerous game animal.
What makes this all the more remarkable is that she accomplished this all at a time when women were not expected to work outside the home, much less take up occupations so traditionally “masculine” as horse racing and flying airplanes.
Many of the incidents described in this memoir sound fantastical, like tales out of a novel rather than events that happened to real people. For example, as a young girl, the author was attacked by a lion; she hunted wild boar with a spear; she rescued a crash-landed pilot; she crash-landed herself. The fantastical nature of these stories is enhanced by the beautifully descriptive prose in which they are told.
Though I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it would be irresponsible of me to not acknowledge the perspective from which the stories are told is one of white colonialist privilege. The settler farm the author’s parents established was, if not so brutal as a plantation driven by slave labor, still essentially part of a feudal state. Beryl Markham does not often speak disparagingly about native peoples. On the contrary, she speaks lovingly of her childhood companions and respectfully of the men who were hired to serve her family and herself personally. But the conventions of her time and her own culture, specifically relating to treatment of the people of colonized lands, must be acknowledged.
This is certainly a worthwhile read/listen for anyone who likes memoirs, but I’d also recommend it to folks who enjoy adventure stories or books about plucky ladies who make their own way, even if you’d usually pick novels over nonfiction. I’m personally also interested in reading more about Beryl Markham; I intend to find a copy of her biography written by Mary S. Lovell, Straight on Till Morning.
Links:
Publication information: Markham, Beryl. West with the night. Ashland, Oregon: Blackstone Audio, 2005. Audiobook.
Source: Public library, via Hoopla.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
