|
Forty-year-old Amelia Earhart is lost on an island in the Pacific, yet finds herself resurrected in her sister Muriel’s study just outside of Boston. Seventy-nine-year-old Muriel is reeling from the double loss of a son and a husband. Seventeen-year old Sam Barry, winner of the Amelia Earhart Scholarship, is just beginning her life as a coed, trying her best to separate from her needy mother and her dysfunctional family. Their lives intersect in surprising ways, and long buried secrets come to light, revealing the special, powerful intimacy women share, whether they are siblings, best friends, or mothers and daughters.
|
Visit
|
"So true that people think they know famous people, but only know the persona. This was a refreshing perspective, a sister, a lover, and people who only knew the persona and how they come together and form bits and pieces of the possible truths. Plus, is she real? Do you believe in ghosts?" — Goodreads Review
"A lovely, intimate novel about mothers, daughters, sisters and those who love them, set in several vividly and authentically evoked locations including New York in the 1980s, where Amelia Earhart explores the city's many neighborhoods' riches upon her return." — Amy, Amazon Review
"Surviving Amelia brings what I love about Rand's storytelling—expert pacing, strong female characters, emotional honesty--to a deeply moving and beautifully written story of love and loss. I highly recommend this absorbing and imaginative book." — Cynthia Ward, Amazon Review
"A lovely, intimate novel about mothers, daughters, sisters and those who love them, set in several vividly and authentically evoked locations including New York in the 1980s, where Amelia Earhart explores the city's many neighborhoods' riches upon her return." — Amy, Amazon Review
"Surviving Amelia brings what I love about Rand's storytelling—expert pacing, strong female characters, emotional honesty--to a deeply moving and beautifully written story of love and loss. I highly recommend this absorbing and imaginative book." — Cynthia Ward, Amazon Review
THE NEXT MORNING the woman at the front desk was distraught. Some crazy acolyte had murdered John Lennon, the former Beatle. Wasn’t it horrible? Who would do something like that?
Beatles? She read the coverage. It was tragic. She knew all about this sort of insane devotion and what it spawned. She thought immediately of the boy, Winston Barry, and how he would take it. She went to find him at the coffee shop but he wasn’t there. Not that day or the next. Amelia stood outside the window of the apartment, waiting for him. He never emerged. She read on, fascinated by the fans’ heartbroken laments, the outpouring of grief and affection.
On Saturday, Amelia went to Central Park. She thought of it as Olmsted’s triumph, his vision of a wilderness artfully tucked inside a teeming metropolis. Amelia joined the steady stream of people heading for the band shell.
Love, love me do
Love was what this group sang about.
She’d heard the band’s songs in every store this week. And blaring from street vendors radios. The park crowd was silent. Respectful. It was like Will Roger’s funeral, she thought, when every movie theatre in the country went dark in mourning. Amelia had gone to see her dearest friend privately, slipping in ahead of the line of fans to view the casket, then going home to lock herself in her bedroom and cry.
The crowd began to sing Imagine.
There was no set age; bearded men, fresh faced boys, girls in jeans and short skirts, and children perching on their parent’s shoulders made up the crowd. A voice over the loudspeaker announced it was time and the clock struck two.
Not one person spoke. No one broke the silence. Being so tall, she could see around her. She searched for Winston Barry as one minute ticked on into two. No one broke ranks. They stood transfixed, trapped in their own memory of this singular person.
He’d been a pacifist, this John Lennon, although Amelia thought it a little silly when she’d read about his bed-in for peace. Still, the impulse was genuine. That poor bereft widow beating at the policeman with her fists, screaming that it had to be wrong, it just wasn’t possible. Those two had apparently had a passionate love affair; he’d left his wife and given up his famous band-mates for her, turning himself into a nonentity of sorts, wanting to just be a husband and father and upstanding citizen of this same city. His mistake had been to try and find the limelight again. Fame was its own reward. Now there was an odd saying.
By the time she ran into Winston Manning again, Amelia was the most famous woman in the world. It had been years since she’d broken it off with him on that corner near the library. Years and years since she’d come into her own, leaving him and all that they’d planned together, behind. Amelia kept tabs on her former beau. He’d gone and married a rich society coed from Barnard, a Katherine Benet. She pored over the grainy photos of the perfect society wedding. Sneered at it, almost. And eventually, she too had married, giving in to G.P.
When she attended that gathering on the Upper East Side, reading and discussing her best selling book, Twenty Hours, Forty Minutes: Our Flight in Friendship, it had been four full years. She’d sat at the back of the room, signing the flyleaves, writing inscriptions. And asking the same question over and over and over again, “Is there something special you’d like me to add?”
“Whatever you think might be appropriate.”
Amelia knew his voice immediately. She swallowed hard, looking up at Winston.
“Go ahead,” he said, and she opened the book.
There was a slip of paper there, inside the front cover. She quickly slid it inside her jacket pocket. She could have thrown it away. Instead, later she unfolded it to find an invitation.
And went. How could she not? She wore a black wig, a long dark dress, glasses with see-through lenses, and a hat that obscured her face. They sat above the ballroom floor, talking. When the main act came on, they went downstairs to dance. The woman singer had a sweet, silky voice. They danced cheek to cheek under the colored lights of the ballroom. No one seemed to recognize her. That was a relief. Winston leaned in and whispered, “Anything worth doing involves taking risks.”
“It’s unfair to use my own words against me,” she told him.
“What’s that?” Putting a hand to one ear, he pretended deafness.
It was, actually, more than fair. She knew that better than he did. She had become Amelia Earhart, brazen flier, the bravest woman in the world. She’d piloted the Atlantic solo, married her promoter, and started a clothing line. She’d been feted in Europe and had ticker tape parades given in her honor. Yet with him, she’d played the coward. She’d come to tell him the entire story. Why she’d done what she’d done to him. She was going to get it off her chest and let him judge her cleanly, clearly. Yet, she found that, when she was with him, she was afraid to do it. In this one thing, she lacked the courage of her convictions. She just couldn’t bear for him to have a bad opinion of her. It would, quite literally, break her heart. He would never have to know, she told herself. What was the harm in keeping quiet now?
Back in Central Park, they were at seven minutes and counting. The cold pierced her bones. Striated sunlight dappled the crowd. People spilled out everywhere. There had to be enough gathered here to bring the city’s humming heart to a stop.
Wrong. She heard the faint rush of traffic. Life went on, regardless.
Winston Manning’s clearly had without her. She’d gone to the library right after she discovered he was dead and read his impressive obituary in the New York Times. He’d built his father’s business into a hugely successful company. He’d gotten out of munitions and into making steel beams for construction projects. Manning is survived by his loving wife Katherine, his daughter, Brooke, and two grandchildren, Samantha and Winston.
This, the same Katherine his grandson had accused her of working for, irony of ironies. The same woman Winston had claimed was barren. Had he lied to her about it? Perhaps. What mattered was he’d had a child with his wife after all. He’d had a full life. The granddaughter’s name couldn’t help but strike her as familiar, and then she knew why. It was the name of the girl who was corresponding with Muriel about that talk at Columbia. She’d looked over her sister’s shoulder enough times in that stifling office to be certain of that.
Oh, the perfect synchronicity of it all.
Nine minutes and counting. Winston Manning had told her that if she went away and never came back, it would kill him. Clearly it hadn’t. She was glad to know that. In fact, he’d had many more years without her, than with her.
She turned, trying to find the grandson’s face in the crowd. If she told him her truth, he’d think her truly mad. Still, she thought she might try. What did she have to lose?
Ten minutes.
There he was, just at the edge of the crowd. Time was up. A collective gasp and then everyone began to disperse. He stood alone, a miserable, lost, and lonely boy.
Just then, the sky changed from crystalline blue to gray, and from above, white flakes rained down like God’s own tears.
Beatles? She read the coverage. It was tragic. She knew all about this sort of insane devotion and what it spawned. She thought immediately of the boy, Winston Barry, and how he would take it. She went to find him at the coffee shop but he wasn’t there. Not that day or the next. Amelia stood outside the window of the apartment, waiting for him. He never emerged. She read on, fascinated by the fans’ heartbroken laments, the outpouring of grief and affection.
On Saturday, Amelia went to Central Park. She thought of it as Olmsted’s triumph, his vision of a wilderness artfully tucked inside a teeming metropolis. Amelia joined the steady stream of people heading for the band shell.
Love, love me do
Love was what this group sang about.
She’d heard the band’s songs in every store this week. And blaring from street vendors radios. The park crowd was silent. Respectful. It was like Will Roger’s funeral, she thought, when every movie theatre in the country went dark in mourning. Amelia had gone to see her dearest friend privately, slipping in ahead of the line of fans to view the casket, then going home to lock herself in her bedroom and cry.
The crowd began to sing Imagine.
There was no set age; bearded men, fresh faced boys, girls in jeans and short skirts, and children perching on their parent’s shoulders made up the crowd. A voice over the loudspeaker announced it was time and the clock struck two.
Not one person spoke. No one broke the silence. Being so tall, she could see around her. She searched for Winston Barry as one minute ticked on into two. No one broke ranks. They stood transfixed, trapped in their own memory of this singular person.
He’d been a pacifist, this John Lennon, although Amelia thought it a little silly when she’d read about his bed-in for peace. Still, the impulse was genuine. That poor bereft widow beating at the policeman with her fists, screaming that it had to be wrong, it just wasn’t possible. Those two had apparently had a passionate love affair; he’d left his wife and given up his famous band-mates for her, turning himself into a nonentity of sorts, wanting to just be a husband and father and upstanding citizen of this same city. His mistake had been to try and find the limelight again. Fame was its own reward. Now there was an odd saying.
By the time she ran into Winston Manning again, Amelia was the most famous woman in the world. It had been years since she’d broken it off with him on that corner near the library. Years and years since she’d come into her own, leaving him and all that they’d planned together, behind. Amelia kept tabs on her former beau. He’d gone and married a rich society coed from Barnard, a Katherine Benet. She pored over the grainy photos of the perfect society wedding. Sneered at it, almost. And eventually, she too had married, giving in to G.P.
When she attended that gathering on the Upper East Side, reading and discussing her best selling book, Twenty Hours, Forty Minutes: Our Flight in Friendship, it had been four full years. She’d sat at the back of the room, signing the flyleaves, writing inscriptions. And asking the same question over and over and over again, “Is there something special you’d like me to add?”
“Whatever you think might be appropriate.”
Amelia knew his voice immediately. She swallowed hard, looking up at Winston.
“Go ahead,” he said, and she opened the book.
There was a slip of paper there, inside the front cover. She quickly slid it inside her jacket pocket. She could have thrown it away. Instead, later she unfolded it to find an invitation.
And went. How could she not? She wore a black wig, a long dark dress, glasses with see-through lenses, and a hat that obscured her face. They sat above the ballroom floor, talking. When the main act came on, they went downstairs to dance. The woman singer had a sweet, silky voice. They danced cheek to cheek under the colored lights of the ballroom. No one seemed to recognize her. That was a relief. Winston leaned in and whispered, “Anything worth doing involves taking risks.”
“It’s unfair to use my own words against me,” she told him.
“What’s that?” Putting a hand to one ear, he pretended deafness.
It was, actually, more than fair. She knew that better than he did. She had become Amelia Earhart, brazen flier, the bravest woman in the world. She’d piloted the Atlantic solo, married her promoter, and started a clothing line. She’d been feted in Europe and had ticker tape parades given in her honor. Yet with him, she’d played the coward. She’d come to tell him the entire story. Why she’d done what she’d done to him. She was going to get it off her chest and let him judge her cleanly, clearly. Yet, she found that, when she was with him, she was afraid to do it. In this one thing, she lacked the courage of her convictions. She just couldn’t bear for him to have a bad opinion of her. It would, quite literally, break her heart. He would never have to know, she told herself. What was the harm in keeping quiet now?
Back in Central Park, they were at seven minutes and counting. The cold pierced her bones. Striated sunlight dappled the crowd. People spilled out everywhere. There had to be enough gathered here to bring the city’s humming heart to a stop.
Wrong. She heard the faint rush of traffic. Life went on, regardless.
Winston Manning’s clearly had without her. She’d gone to the library right after she discovered he was dead and read his impressive obituary in the New York Times. He’d built his father’s business into a hugely successful company. He’d gotten out of munitions and into making steel beams for construction projects. Manning is survived by his loving wife Katherine, his daughter, Brooke, and two grandchildren, Samantha and Winston.
This, the same Katherine his grandson had accused her of working for, irony of ironies. The same woman Winston had claimed was barren. Had he lied to her about it? Perhaps. What mattered was he’d had a child with his wife after all. He’d had a full life. The granddaughter’s name couldn’t help but strike her as familiar, and then she knew why. It was the name of the girl who was corresponding with Muriel about that talk at Columbia. She’d looked over her sister’s shoulder enough times in that stifling office to be certain of that.
Oh, the perfect synchronicity of it all.
Nine minutes and counting. Winston Manning had told her that if she went away and never came back, it would kill him. Clearly it hadn’t. She was glad to know that. In fact, he’d had many more years without her, than with her.
She turned, trying to find the grandson’s face in the crowd. If she told him her truth, he’d think her truly mad. Still, she thought she might try. What did she have to lose?
Ten minutes.
There he was, just at the edge of the crowd. Time was up. A collective gasp and then everyone began to disperse. He stood alone, a miserable, lost, and lonely boy.
Just then, the sky changed from crystalline blue to gray, and from above, white flakes rained down like God’s own tears.
Other Books You May Like
|