The MacDowell Colony supported me with a generous writing residency, where I had the impossible gift of uninterrupted time and space, and was able to work on a critical draft of this book. Steve Reed provided helpful notes on piloting and flight, and also was the person who first put West with the Night into my hands. Though he would most assuredly rather have cash or a vintage biplane, he’ll have to accept my eternal gratitude! Stacey Giere of Maple Crest Farm was key in helping me flesh out the world of horses and horse training. I owe her much for her time and expertise.
My heartfelt thanks goes to the amazing team at Micato Safaris for making my trip to Kenya so memorable and magical: Felix, Jane, and Dennis Pinto; Melissa Hordych; Marty Von Neudegg; Liz Wheeler; Philip Rono, Wesley Korir, and Jessica Brida. Mark Ross was wonderfully helpful, as was Cheryl de Souza of Airkenya. Thanks also to Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, particularly Mike Taylor, Alka Winter, and Mary Wanjohi, and to all of my gracious hosts and contacts in Kenya: The Norfolk Hotel; Segera Retreat; Jens Kozany and the Zeitz Foundation; the Craig family and Lewa Wilderness; Andrew, Zoe, and Bruce Nightingale of Kembu Cottages in Njoro; and Jacqueline Damon and Sleeping Warrior Eco Lodge at Soysambu Conservancy.
Brian Groh was the frontman in researching my trip to Africa to follow in the footsteps of Beryl Markham. He also gave early feedback on the manuscript, and has been a lionhearted friend for many years. Other key early reads and crucial support came from Lori Keene, David French, Jim Harms, Malena Morling, and Greg D’Alessio. Other dear friends have given me unflagging support and love for many years and must be thanked: Sharon Day and Mr. Chuck, Brad Bedortha, the phenomenal O’Hara family, Becky Gaylord, Lynda Montgomery, Denise Machado and John Sargent, Heather Greene, and Karen Rosenberg. Chris Pavone talked me down from a ledge or two. Big thanks to the East Side Writers—Terry Dubow, Sarah Willis, Toni Thayer, Charlie Oberndorf, Karen Sandstrom, Neal Chandler, and Justin Glanville—who are always on my side.
Special appreciation and a big kiss goes to Terry Sullivan for his boundless confidence in this book and me, for the phenomenal dinners, and for making my life a lot more fun! And finally, I have to thank my mother, Rita Hinken; my incredible children, Beckett, Fiona, and Connor, for sharing me (sort of!) with my work; and my sisters, who are everything.
Writing fiction about people who actually lived is somewhat like skydiving. All sorts of things have me flinging myself out into space toward my story—curiosity, imagination, an ineffable connection to my characters, and, let’s face it, some strange love of the sensation of falling. But it’s the research that gives me my parachute. Concrete sources anchor and ground me and make my process possible. They tell me what I need to know in order to invent what I must as a novelist—and for this I am thankful and humbled. West with the Night, Beryl’s own account of her incredible life, compelled me to learn more about her, was the source of ignition for my novel, and is a phenomenal work in its own right.
Mary Lovell’s Straight On Till Morning: The Life of Beryl Markham was the first biography to bring Beryl to light, in 1987, and her pioneering efforts and careful research have been crucial to my own and other writers’ abilities to imagine Beryl’s life. Mary Lovell also compiled Beryl Markham’s stories in The Splendid Outcast, a collection that wouldn’t have been available otherwise, and for that we should all be grateful. Finally, Lovell’s sympathetic view of Beryl was an important touchstone for me as I worked.
Other important sources were Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass, by Isak Dinesen; African Hunter, by Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke; The Lives of Beryl Markham and Silence Will Speak, by Errol Trzebinski; Never Turn Back, by Catherine Gourley; Too Close to the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton, by Sara Wheeler; Isak Dinsesen: The Life of a Storyteller, by Judith Thurman; and Isak Dinesen’s Letters from Africa, 1914–1931, translated by Anne Born.
Incredibly beneficial in helping me conjure both colonial Kenya and the lives of these British expats were The Flame Trees of Thika and Nine Faces of Kenya: Portrait of a Nation, by Elspeth Huxley; The Bolter, by Frances Osborne; The Ghosts of Happy Valley, by Juliet Barnes; The Tree Where Man Was Born, by Peter Matthiessen; Swahili Tales, by Edward Steere; and Kenya: A Country in the Making, 1880–1940, by Nigel Pavitt.
About the Author
PAULA MCLAIN is the author of The Paris Wife, a New York Times and international bestseller. She received her MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan and has been awarded fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the National Endowment for the Arts. McLain is also the author of two collections of poetry; a memoir, Like Family: Growing Up in Other People’s Houses; and a first novel, A Ticket to Ride. She lives in Cleveland with her family.