An Evening with Paula McClain

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Other Locations
Hilton Fort Collins

Event Details

CIRCLING THE SUN, Paula McLain’s highly anticipated follow-up to the beloved and critically acclaimed, The Paris Wife, was an instant New York Times bestseller when it was published last summer. Raised in 1920’s Kenya, the same unforgettable world that inspired Out of Africa, Beryl Markham is a fierce young woman driven to prove her courage and win independence at any cost. Abandoned by her mother as a young child, Beryl is raised by her unconventional father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. She marries at sixteen, and at eighteen becomes the first female to earn her license as a professional racehorse trainer; soon she’ll become one of the very first people in Africa- and the world- to have a commercial pilot’s license. But the terrain Beryl can’t seem to conquer is her own heart. Swept up by the Happy Valley set, British and European expats who seem to survive on champagne and extra marital affairs, Beryl has a series of unsatisfying relationships. But when she meets safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton, and the Danish author Karen Blixen (better know by her penname, Isaak Dinesen), she’s catapulted into a passionate love triangle that will change her life forever. All three are permanently seared and altered by the relationship, but Beryl will also be set on a course to fly the Atlantic, two-thousand feet above the icy waves, without radio contact, alone for twenty-four hours, trusting only her instincts. It will be her greatest adventure yet, and perhaps the moment she was born for. Beryl was light years ahead of her time, and her story is as astonishing as the harsh and exciting country that shaped her. From her untamed childhood, to her many struggles to achieve the freedom she always dreamed of, and finally to the love that tested and transformed her life, in CIRCLING THE SUN, this inspiring, brave and complicated woman roars to life. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Paula McLain is the author of the novels The Paris Wife and A Ticket to Ride, the memoir Like Family: Growing Up in Other People’s Houses, and two collections of poetry. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Cleveland with her family. For more information: http://lib.colostate.edu/about/news/2016/mclain
Event Type(s): Special Events
Age Group(s): Adults
Presenter: Paula McClain