WRONG WAY CORRIGAN'S WILD RIDE

In a goofy yet thrilling exploit from aviation’s early days, a pilot bound for California takes off from a New York airstrip—and winds up in Ireland.

Taking Douglas Corrigan’s lifelong claim—that he just read the wrong end of his compass needle—with the grain of salt it deserves, Rockliff delivers an account of his 1938 trans-Atlantic flight. Along the way, she offers thoughtful studies of both his singularly engaging character and the broad struggle to persuade the public that flying was a safe means of transportation…notwithstanding the indubitable fact that many early aviators died young and violently. Rockliff provides a daunting tally of those early victims while vividly capturing how fantastically dangerous it was to fly 3,200 miles over ocean in what was described at the time with some justice as “nothing but an orange crate covered with grease.” She also ably explains how the act made Corrigan into an instant international celebrity by coming at just the right time to offer relief to the spirits of a weary Depression-era populace. He comes off as both skilled flyer and all-around nice guy—a more approachable hero than more famous aviator colleagues like the rich and remote Howard Hughes and the increasingly racist, pro-Nazi Charles Lindbergh. Spot art at the chapter heads includes a small schematic diagram of his modified Curtiss Robin monoplane.

Perceptively places a winningly reckless adventurer in context.