Product Description

Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen's love story became the basis for the Oscar-winning film Out of Africa. Now, the author of Silence Will Speak reveals a twist in their relationship: Beryl Markham, one of the century's greatest free spirits, pursued Hatton in fierce competition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #369112 in Books
• Published on: 1995-03-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780393312522
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
A deft and intimate portrait of the aviator who made her pioneering transatlantic solo flight and wrote the popular West with the Night.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
A powerfully written portrait. . . . Trzebinski writes of Markham's years in Africa with enormous passion for the land and an intuitive sympathy for how it shaped Markham's emotional and spiritual outlook. . . . A fascinating and provocative reappraisal of a singularly willful and conflicted woman. (Michiko Kakutani - New York Times )

Spun together with impressive skill. (Elspeth Huxley - Weekend Telegraph )

This is the true biography of Beryl Markham: knowledgeably researched, rich in detail, telling the secrets and playing out the dramas that were carefully concealed in the pages of West with the Night. (James Fox, author of White Mischief )

About the Author
Errol Trzebinski has spent over half her life in Kenya. She was a consultant on the film Out of Africa.

Customer Reviews

I Should Have Stopped with "West with the Night"
I am only a third of the way through this book, and am already deeply saddened by it's content. After reading "West with the Night," I was anxious to know more about the mysterious Beryl Markham. How common that this book seems to concentrate on her alleged promiscuity rather than on her remarkable achievements for a woman during the 1920's. It reads more like a transcript from a British Jerry Springer episode. It's like going to an art gallery, and listening to some jealous wannabe fool babble on and on about the artist's "intent" or their "mood" during the creation of the piece of art; piecing together their indictment from hearsay. This book would be just grand for subscribers of People magazine.

Finding Beryl Markham
After reading "West with the Night" I wanted to know who is this brilliant woman? The biography is hard to follow because events and persons are mixed in a weird cocktail. The author does not follow a clear story line, has perhaps just as little writing talent as she claims Beryl Markham did. Beryl's uninhibited life in Africa and Los Angeles is documented, but not much credit given to her remarkable talents this woman obviously possessed. Her third husband Raoul Schumacher, a Hollywood ghostwriter, is believably credited with the authorship of "West with the Night". He couldn't have written so well without the vivid recollections about horsebreeding, aviation and animal behavior in Africa by his wife Beryl Markham, whom he adored.
This biography is a hodgepodge through which one most roam to come about facts. Like for instance what kind of monoplane did she fly from London to New York etc.? Was the year 1932?

Did she or didn't she?
Several writers have suggested what is really a sensible solution - Beryl was not an author in the traditional sense, she wrote about her life and experiences, so her efforts when trying to write commercially were plagued by her disinterest and lack of ability. She did write beautifully in West as well as those of her stories presented in the first section of Splendid Outcast, but if you compare them with ones at the end of the book, that the author suggests were probably written jointly with Rauol, the stylistic differences are clear. She was not a "writer" who could churn out material for publication, she could write about the things she knew and loved.

As to being promiscious and occasionally ornery, she saw no reason to act any differently than men acted in her world, and good for her!