Today I read an article in The New Yorker about Earhart, which cited several books about the aviatrix, including this fictional one by Mendelsohn. The magazine piece was enough to make me go find my copy of I WAS AMELIA EARHART, which has been languishing unread in my bookcase for several years. The book is a short, slight thing - a novella really, which I was able to read in its entirety in just a few hours. It began well, with clean crisp prose and a minimalist approach to dialogue that made me think of Hemingway. To wit, this exchange between Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, a known drunk -

"I climb down from the plane and hold out my hand. She's looking fine. We're working on the radio. I have grease on my face and a screwdriver in my hand. He knows that I don't like him. He plants a kiss on my cheek and I smile wanly ..."

And so on - you know, terse tough guy kinda stuff. The trouble is it doesn't last. After Earhart's plane disappears and the fantasy part begins, the prose becomes purple and unwieldy and the point of view keeps shifting from first person to third to omniscient, etc. And these two people who so disliked each other become passionate lovers - real bodice-ripping romance kinda crap. I mean I know we have no idea what happened to Earhart and Noonan on that fateful day in 1937, but this jungle love stuff just becomes a bit much. The last fifty pages or so were like a bad dream. I won't say I hated the book, because I didn't. It's an interesting premise, and I kept thinking that this is kind of like Waller's Bridges of Madison County, which I thought was purely awful as a book, but the film version with Eastwood and Streep was great. A film from I WAS AMELIA EARHART might be just as good, handled correctly. So I'm not gonna "dis" this book completely. Naw, it's not great, but it's not awful either. You did okay with this idea, Jane. Now find a filmmaker, okay? ( )

What happened to Amelia Earhart and her ill-fated flight across the Pacific? The world may never know, but isn’t it fun to speculate? Did the Japanese shoot down her plane? Did she run out of fuel and dive into the ocean? Or, as Jane Mendelsohn proposed in I Was Amelia Earhart, was she was marooned on an island, living off fish and coconuts and having great sex with her navigator?

I Was Amelia Earhart is a speculative account of this famous aviator, who admittedly, I know little about. Amy Adams recently portrayed her in the movie Night at the Museum, and her depiction of Amelia inspired me to grab this book for Orange July. While Adams’ Amelia was spunky and fearless, Mendelsohn’s Amelia was troubled, depressed and suicidal. Lost in an unhappy marriage, Amelia took advantage of the worldwide flight to test her limits, not caring if she lived or died. It wasn’t until something bad happened on the flight – and her subsequent survival on a deserted island – that Amelia found happiness. All her life, Amelia wanted to be free. Coincidentally it wasn’t flying but seclusion that gave her this precious gift.

Short and sweet, I Was Amelia Earhart speculated into the “what ifs” of Amelia Earhart’s fate. Though I disliked the ending, I enjoyed Mendelsohn’s writing style (almost dream-like) and her development of a complicated heroine. It has inspired me to learn more about this famous woman. ( )

I really beautiful book. The story was nice but the prose was excellent. Really tough to put down. One of those stories that really pulls you into the moment. ( )

not much to it ( )

What if Amelia Earhart didn't die when she disappeared during her around-the-world flight?

This is a tiny treasure of a book- very short but extremely poetic prose, snippeting its way through the life of one of history's most celebrated heroines, without a worry about chronology. Beautifully written, and short enough to be read in a couple of hours, this book is like a dollop of sweet cream. Just a little taste of sweetness that lingers well after it's been consumed. ( )