Though they depict the same place and time, and house many of the same characters, Beryl’s book hasn’t found as wide an audience or had the same impact as Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa, but I believe it has the potential to. From the moment I read even a few sentences, West with the Night took powerful hold of my imagination. Beryl’s descriptions of her African childhood, colonial Kenya in all its seasons, and her extraordinary adventures fairly leap off the page—but more striking to me is the spirit behind the words. She had so much nerve and pluck, plunging fearlessly into vast gaps between the sexes, and at a time when such feats were nearly unthinkable. I hadn’t ever encountered anyone quite like her—a woman who lived by her own code instead of society’s, though that cost her much. Who would have fit perfectly into Hemingway’s muscular fiction, but she actually lived!
Beryl was undoubtedly complicated—a riddle, a libertine, a maverick. A sphinx. But strangely, as I was writing her character and pitching myself deeply into her world, she became more knowable and familiar to me in some ways than Hadley Hemingway in my novel The Paris Wife. Beryl and I share at least one profound piece of emotional genealogy: My mother also vanished from my life when I was four and returned when I was twenty. I felt a bone-deep jolt when I discovered that link—and it became one reliable way to get close to Beryl, and gain important insight into some of her more difficult choices. The loss of her son, for instance, is utterly heartbreaking to me. Though she would never be very close to Gervase, who remained in England with Mansfield’s mother, apparently he inherited Beryl’s willfulness and her stoicism. He was proud of his mother’s adventurous spirit and accomplishments, and felt more fondness for her than for his father, it appears, who was even more distant and unavailable.
Beryl’s relationship with Ruta spanned her lifetime, as their shared childhood experiences grew into mutual respect and unshakable trust. Though they were separated for a time in the 1930s when she moved to England, after the Second World War, she was able to track him down, and they were never again out of touch. Though Beryl kept her heart closed to most, and her secrets locked up tightly, her friends and confidants agree that, after Ruta and her father, Denys Finch Hatton was very probably the only man she ever truly loved. She died in Nairobi, in 1986, at the age of eighty-three, near the fiftieth anniversary of her record-breaking flight, and perhaps thinking of the moment she climbed into her Gull, tucking a hip flask of brandy into her flight jumpsuit.
“Twende tu,” she called out in Swahili as she buckled her helmet.
I am going.
Paula McLain—Cleveland, Ohio
For my family—with love and thanks unending—and for Letti Ann Christoffersen, who was my Lady D
Books are intricately collaborative efforts. I might slave away at my desk in isolation, but I’m hardly alone. Many, many amazing folks have had a hand in the making of Circling the Sun, and though I hope I’ve expressed my gratitude to them individually at many points along the way, they certainly deserve formal props and my humble thanks here. My agent, Julie Barer, is quite simply the best there is. With heart and grit and wonderful instincts to spare, she’s become my first and most important reader, and also a dear friend. I wouldn’t want to do any of this without her. Susanna Porter is the kind of editor other writers rightfully covet. She read (and read!) innumerable drafts—but never stopped believing in what this book could be. Her sharp eye and insight and unshakable commitment live on every page.
I have found the best possible home at Ballantine Books and Penguin Random House, and have come to rely on many crucial, crucial players there who do their jobs so well. Bottomless thanks to the completely lovely and brilliant Libby McGuire; also Kim Hovey, Jennifer Hershey, Susan Corcoran, Jennifer Garza, Theresa Zoro, Quinne Rogers, Deborah Foley, Paolo Pepe, Benjamin Dreyer, Steve Messina, Kristin Fassler, Kate Childs, Toby Ernst, Anna Bauer, Mark Maguire, Carolyn Meers, Lisa Barnes, and, of course, the indispensable Priyanka Krishnan. Thanks to Sue Betz, who was so thoughtful and thorough in her copyediting; to Dana Blanchette for her beautiful design of the interior elements; and to Robbin Schiff for the absolutely stunning cover. I’m grateful to the amazing Gina Centrello, who weighed in with an essential read when the stakes were high, and also have to thank the incredible sales force for their passionate commitment to books, for knowing their accounts so thoroughly, for getting my work into the hands of booksellers and readers, and for doing their jobs so tirelessly and well.
The home team at Barer Literary is incomparable and I owe them much: Gemma Purdy, Anna Geller, and William Boggess. Many thanks as well to Ursula Doyle, Susan de Soissons, and David Bamford at Virago; Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein; and Lynn Henry, Kristin Cochrane, and Sharon Klein at Doubleday Canada and Penguin Random House Canada.