Wilmington writer takes on the 'frontiers of flight'

We're quite a way from Kitty Hawk, but the early days of aviation have an attraction for local writers.

Taylor Brown wrote about the barnstorming era in his 2022 novel "Wingwalkers." Now, longtime Wilmington resident Myrna Brown tackles similar material in "Harold's Field."

The story opens in Minnesota, late in World War I, when 15-year-old Will walks out on his cold, domineering father. Dad wants Will to go to college and be a lawyer like him. Will wants to fly.

With only cents to his name, Will settles with Harold, a kindly, widowed farmer and begins working on his land. A mechanical whiz, he soon begins working at the new Gulf gas station that's just opened nearby, and he rents a rickety barn from the station owner's brother-in-law.

Will lives cheaply and saves. Before long, he has enough to buy a war-surplus Curtiss JN "Jenny" biplane in a kit. Now, all he has to do is put it together. (Some parts seem to be missing -- isn't that the way -- so he has to rig replacements from leftover auto parts.)

Then all he has to do is flag down one of the discharged Army pilots starting to roam the country and actually learn to fly.

Will's dream is to lead his own "flying circus," based on an airstrip rigged on Harold's farm.

One possible stumbling block: Will has developed an obsession with Grace. The trouble is, she's married to Ray, Will's landlord -- and the chatterbox Ray is the closest thing the loner Will has to a best friend.

It takes a while for Will to get airborne, but Brown (who now lives in the San Diego area) does a fair job of recreating a vanished era in American life. Unlike Will, she takes her eyes off the sky from time to time and notices what's happening: the Spanish flu epidemic, the coming of the Tin Lizzy and the transition from horse power to gas-powered horsepower.

This is an age, she reminds us, when indoor plumbing was still a novelty outside of towns and cities -- and when the Sears Roebuck catalog was often recycled for purposes now served by Charmin tissue.

Brown could use some tighter editing; her narrative is often repetitive and its jumping back and forth in chronology might confuse some readers. Still, she catches a ;pmg arc of American life. By the novel's end, Grace's daughter Lindy has become a WASP pilot in World War II and Harold's field has become a modern regional airport.

Book review

Harold's Field: Barnstormers on the Frontiers of Flight

By Myrna Brown

Allona, Manitoba: Friesen Press, $11.99 paperback

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: "Harold's Field" by Wilmington, NC writer Myrna Brown takes on aviation