Eyes Turned Skyward
After the United States joined the Allied effort during World War II, many American women took jobs vacated by men who’d been drafted into or volunteered for the military. Less well-known among them are the Women Airforce Service Pilots, who were trained to transport military planes on domestic missions. You’d think anyone who’d served in that elite group would have championed their accomplishments. Not Peggy Mayfield. She’s kept this part of her life secret. Why? It’s a question that will nag at her daughter, Kathy Begley, after she uncovers evidence of her mother’s hidden past and becomes intent on seeing her mother get her due.
This dual-timeline novel tells the intriguing story of the formation and dissolution of the Women Airforce Service Pilots from 1943-44, interwoven with a contemporary story of a fraught mother-daughter relationship and a marriage unhinged by the husband’s recent involuntary unemployment.
The novel’s historical scenes of WASP training and its depiction of the friendships among its female characters are engaging. Yet, some scenes are overwrought, melodramatic or implausible. That a major would whisk one of his students into his office the day she completes flight training, have sex with her on his desk, and declare his eternal love beggars belief.
In the end, the question that had nagged at Peggy continued to nag at me: Why the secret? Dillon suggests Peggy kept her time with the WASPs secret because she associated it with loss. Transformed from a feisty young woman to a harpy, she spends the next six decades punishing her children, especially her daughter, for those losses. Peggy finally accepts belated recognition of her military contributions and begrudgingly apologizes for her coldness. Kathy acknowledges the gesture. I remained unconvinced either character had changed.
