Straight on Till Morning: the Biography of Beryl Markham in Around the World in 80 Books

Apr 28, 2017 Jim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: africa, womens-_studies, true_adventure, non-fiction, biography

This is truly a fair-minded piece of work by an author who travelled extensively and took the trouble to meet the woman she intended to write about. Beryl Markham was truly a complicated woman, and not always (maybe not ever) a pleasant one. I was so impressed by the book allegedly written by Markham, West with the Night, that I sought this biography out immediately. I'm glad I did; Ms Lovell has a gift for presenting the entire subject, warts and all, to the reader without telling you what conc This is truly a fair-minded piece of work by an author who travelled extensively and took the trouble to meet the woman she intended to write about. Beryl Markham was truly a complicated woman, and not always (maybe not ever) a pleasant one. I was so impressed by the book allegedly written by Markham, West with the Night, that I sought this biography out immediately. I'm glad I did; Ms Lovell has a gift for presenting the entire subject, warts and all, to the reader without telling you what conclusion you should be coming to...that's for you to decide.

Beryl Markham was allowed an unthinkable degree of independence at an early age. At the age of 10 she was allowed to undertake a three day trip on horseback to a neighbouring farm to attend a party, accompanied by a couple of African retainers. She was encouraged to fend for herself by a doting father, whom she idolised to the extent that no subsequent man could measure up to him....and there were many men. She had her ups and downs (and in-and-outs): the peaks were high and the valleys were almost as low as you could sink. She was a person who used and discarded other people seemingly without remorse, with "never look back" as a motto. She was not above living with friends for a while and stealing from them on departure, and running up credit in friends' names at the store. She certainly didn't mind borrowing your husband or cuckolding her own. And if a couple of male writers were to write her book for her in exchange for the use of what God gave her, I imagine she would be good with that. Seemingly, not a nice woman. In fact, Hemingway described her as a "high-grade bitch".

Still, there are some things you can't take away from Beryl Markham. She genuinely had guts. She survived a plane crash, a motorcycle accident, being mauled by a lion, stomped and bitten by stallions, tied up and beaten by home invaders, and being fired on at a roadblock during a military coup (the soldiers were preventing her from attending her club so she charged the roadblock in her Mercedes...she drove the riddled Mercedes to the club and entered bleeding from a bullet wound to the chin.) She obtained a horse trainer's license at the age of 18 and trained derby winners into her 80's. And she was the first woman to fly the Atlantic East to West. And let's not forget the book...if she actually wrote it....it was a crackerjack of a memoir!

Ms Lovell has done a great job with this biography, and has gone to the trouble of providing photos of many of the principals. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in reading about a strong and fascinating woman who lived by her own rules.

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