Great Circle

Shortlisted: The Booker Prize 2021
Published by Transworld: 4 May 2021

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The lives of a fearless female aviator and the actress who portrays her on screen decades later intersect in Maggie Shipstead’s vivid, soaring novel

Marian Graves was a daredevil all her life, from her wild childhood in the forests of Montana to her daring wartime Spitfire missions. In 1950, she sets off on her ultimate adventure, the Great Circle - a flight around the globe. She is never seen again. Half a century later, Hadley Baxter, a scandal-ridden Hollywood actress, whose own parents perished in a plane crash, is irresistibly drawn to play Marian Graves. This role will lead her to uncover the real mystery behind the vanished pilot.

Maggie Shipstead

Maggie Shipstead is an American novelist who lives in Los Angeles. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021 with Great Circle – her third novel

More about Maggie Shipstead

Video highlights

Maggie Shipstead reads from 'Great Circle'

2021 Booker Prize shortlisted author Maggie Shipstead reads from ‘Great Circle’.

Maya Jasanoff on Maggie Shipstead's 'Great Circle'

Watch Maggie Shipstead talk about her latest 'dazzling' novel GREAT CIRCLE with Curtis Sittenfeld

Maggie Shipstead joined novelist Curtis Sittenfeld to discuss Great Circle at an event for Our Bookshop in Tring. The pair discuss how Shipstead was working on another novel, which she abandoned, before the idea for Great Circle came to her, and how a statue at Auckland Airport inspired the book. ‘I think this is a much larger book than I had planned to write,’ says Shipstead.