The Secrets of Flight (29 page)

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I
N
2009, I set out to write a multigenerational saga about family, lost and found, envisioning a teenager, Elyse, inadvertently showing up to a senior citizens' writers' group and having an instant connection with a woman in the group. I already knew that the elderly woman, Mary, was hiding a distressing secret, and that it was up to Elyse to save her, but I wasn't sure what Mary's backstory was until I read an article about President Obama honoring the World War II Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) with Congressional Gold Medals. Having been fascinated with flight since I was little (probably since I read
Ballet Shoes
,
where Petrova Fossil becomes a pilot instead of a dancer), I knew then that that was part of Mary's history—she'd left her family behind when she dared to go fly, fell in love, and made a life-altering decision she'd been haunted by ever since.

I started learning about the Women Airforce Service Pilots at www.WingsAcrossAmerica.com, an amazingly helpful website with interviews, articles, photos, an interactive timeline, and everything a person might want to know about the contribution of these remarkable women. There was even a part of the website, “Contact a WASP,” where I could choose a former pilot to write to. With excitement, I emailed Lucile Wise and told her about my novel, and, over several emails, she graciously answered all of my questions. “I hope you will not portray us as glamorous,” Ms. Wise wrote. “We worked hard and had little time to worry about our hair or make-up.” (I'm sorry, Ms. Wise, but I just kept seeing Miri in that red dress.)

Originally the novel had more points of view, including Elyse's mother Jane's as well as Aunt Andie's, until I realized the story really belonged to Elyse and Mary, and that young Miri needed a voice of her own. I rewove letters between Miri and her sister Sarah from the 1940s into Miri's first-person narrative. Four drafts had been completed, yet still something was missing—more details about a woman pilot's life during the war. Just as I was coming to the conclusion that the chances of randomly bumping into a WASP to interview were slim to none, my friend Joe Balaban randomly bumped into a WASP to interview—at a work function honoring veterans. “I got her phone number,” he said with a smile. “She said you can call her.” It was kismet. Over several conversations and emails, Florence Shutsy-Reynolds generously answered all of my questions, and Miri's time in the air force came alive.

It was Shutsy (pronounced “shoot-see”) who told me her first impressions of flight, how she'd gotten to Texas in the first place—after learning to fly by competing with forty-five men in her class for a government flight scholarship—and what happened at Cochran's Convent once she arrived. From the sleeves of the enormous flight suits, which would get caught on the seat belt levers and accidentally unbuckle them, to the captain who informed her that he hated women pilots just before her check ride—Shutsy shared detail after detail and invited me to use them all.

She told me about the WASPs who, while away ferrying aircrafts, had arranged for the fueling of aircraft and were on their way to dinner when they were promptly arrested on charges of solicitation since it was after 9 P.M. and they were wearing slacks. “Eventually, they got a hold of Nancy Love, and she threatened the sheriff with court-martial if he didn't let them go.” And it was Shutsy herself who had to land unexpectedly in a storm and stay at a hotel, where she and her fellow WASPs, in their leather jackets without insignias, were told to say they were a baseball team rather than admit to being pilots. “We were one of the best-kept secrets of the war,” Shutsy said to me.

I read the account of WASP Lorraine (Zillner) Rodgers, whose rudder cables were cut, forcing her to have to eject from the plane before it crashed, and wondered if there were other forms of sabotage that, for purposes of my plot, would allow the plane to get up before the engine would fail. Both Shutsy-Reynolds and Wise separately told me about sugar in the gas tank as a means of sabotage. “You have to understand, this was a period of time when a cockpit of a military aircraft was a man's sanctuary,” Shutsy explained. Each time there was a WASP crash, Jackie Cochran was sent to investigate, and more often than not it was written up as “pilot error” after she left, which Cochran usually did not contest. “We were on thin ice,” Shutsy said, even before the congressional hearings where they ruled to disband.

Short of combat, these inspiring women flew every type of military aircraft and performed every job in the air, flying “solo, in all types of weather, all times of day or night, in aircraft in perfect condition and in some that were hardly holding together. . . . [W]e were pilots. . . . Being a female was not a consideration,” Shutsy wrote to me once. “We wanted to learn, improve our skills, fly solo to the ends of the earth, fly better than anyone else.” She asked me to portray the WASPs the way they really were: independent, argumentative, opinionated, “a fiery bunch” who were “extremely loyal.” Unlike those in Miri's history, the friendships Shutsy made during her time as a WASP have lasted forever.

The Secrets of Flight
took five drafts over four and a half years before it was acquired—and then another few drafts after that—but it was the Women Airforce Service Pilots themselves who made this a richer story. I just hope I have done the WASPs justice with this novel, as they deserve far more than that.

  1.   Did you know about the Women Airforce Service Pilots program before reading this novel? What do you think it must have been like to be one of these women? Would you have applied at that time?

  2.   Mary and Elyse form an unexpected bond. What does each bring to the other? In what ways are their coming-of-age stories different and in what ways are they similar?

  3.   Miri and Elyse both get “makeovers” to fit in with those around them. Is this a positive change? What are the possible repercussions when you change your appearance for the approval of others?

  4.   Do you think Mary was justified in hiding her heritage? Why or why not? Would you ever change who you are to achieve your dreams or help someone else achieve theirs?

  5.   Jane seems to epitomize the woman who “has it all” until everything falls apart. Is this a possibility for women or is it a myth? How do you think Jane would view it?

  6.   Why is Miri so drawn to flying? What does it represent for her? Is she rushing toward or away from something? Do you think she succeeded?

  7.   During one of her last flights, Miri thinks that the only role for her in the sky after the war would be as a flight attendant. What do you think it was like for women who had taken on unexpected roles during wartime? In what ways do you think that shaped where we are today?

  8.   Elyse dreams of becoming a writer, following in a family tradition that she's not completely aware of. Are there talents or desires that are intrinsic in some people's DNA? Have you ever experienced this?

  9.   How does Elyse help her mother and aunt accept Margot's death? How does Mary finally come to terms with the death of her son?

Books on Maggie Leffler's Night Table

Franny and Zooey
, J. D. Salinger

The Things They Carried
, Tim O'Brian

Love in the Time of Cholera
, Gabriel García Márquez

Catch-22
, Joseph Heller

To the Lighthouse
, Virginia Woolf

About a Boy
, Nick Hornby

The Bell Jar
, Sylvia Plath

Possession
, A. S. Byatt

The Hours
, Michael Cunningham

The Wonder Spot
, Melissa Bank

A Visit from the Goon Squad
, Jennifer Egan

The Family Fang
, Kevin Wilson

The Beautiful Ruins
, Jess Walter

Bibliography

Birch, Jane Gardner.
They Flew Proud
. Nappanee, IN: Evangel Press, 2007.

Dubner, Stephen J.
Choosing My Religion: A Memoir of a Family Beyond Belief
. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.

Ehrlich, Elizabeth.
Miriam's Kitchen
. New York: Penguin Books, 1997.

Gay, Ruth.
Unfinished People: Eastern European Jews Encounter America
. New York: Norton, 1996.

Kolatch, Alfred J.
The Jewish Book of Why
. New York: Penguin Compass, 1981.

Lindbergh, Charles A.
The Spirit of St. Louis
. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953.

Squirrel Hill Historical Society.
Images of America: Squirrel Hill.
Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2005.

Trillin, Calvin.
Messages from My Father.
New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1996.

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