I Was Amelia Earhart (Jane Mendelsohn)

Genre: Literary fiction
Year Published: 1996

It's been about a week now since I finished I Was Amelia Earhart, and I still don't know what to make of it. In short, it is the imagined autobiography of the aviator, taking place mainly after her plane disappears, though with flashbacks to the time beforehand. Mendelsohn's prose is atmospheric and dreamlike, though her imagery is as vivid as can be.

I could tell without Googling Mendelsohn that she was a poet long before she was a fictioneer: her constructions, habits, and tics all broadcast her poetic background. The first hurdle you have to clear to enjoy Amelia Earhart is that Mendelsohn's work has all the shortcomings (as well as the beauty) of lyric poetry -- that is, the prose is a little too breathy and saturated in wonder and revelation.

The second hurdle, which for me was the nigh insurmountable one, is that Mendelsohn constantly toes the line between fantasy and reality. Not difficult, you might think, in an imagined autobiography, but I'm talking about internal consistency. Are Earhart's post-crash experiences all an elaborate, last-minute fever dream as she drowns? Are they a form of afterlife? Or are we meant to take them more literally? Mendelsohn never says, and though perhaps I shouldn't resent this, I do. Ambiguity isn't necessarily an evil, but it is at least enormously frustrating here.

Recommended? Thumb through it at your local library; you'll be able to tell pretty quickly if you're going to be able to stomach Mendelsohn's prose. If you can, then it's a quick, intriguing read -- though not, on the whole, a satisfying one.