MENTALITY

An aspiring fighter pilot must cope with adversity and misogyny in Morris’ memoir, co-written with Napoleon.

Morris wanted to fly jets ever since she was a girl growing up in rural Virginia in the 1970s. This remembrance details her quest to achieve her dream while also discussing what it means to be a “female in a Man’s World.” The book explores how she defied expectations and prejudices and cheated death numerous times in order to do what she loved. She held a series of incredibly intense, physically demanding jobs by choice; as a teenager, she became an emergency medical technician and witnessed horrific accidents and suicides, and, soon after that, she became a firefighter and risked death while rescuing a fellow firefighter. She also endures multiple near-death experiences during military training. But although her work was dangerous, it suited Morris, and she took to it with aplomb. Many individual soldiers treated her poorly: “She’d put aside the unending sexual innuendos, overt passes, nude pinups, people watching porn and asking her to watch, too, and all the rest.” Toward the end of her training, a sexual assault from another soldier at her 40th birthday party traumatized her mentally and physically. She failed her jet fighter’s exam—even though she was clearly qualified, and even though a man in her position likely would have been allowed to continue. The book details Morris’ recovery, and how she managed to find new meaning in her life. Overall, Morris’ story is inspiring and full of excitement and adventure. Readers will appreciate her determination to be true to herself and to forge her own path, as well as her candor about misogyny in male-dominated professions. The book is excessively detailed in places, and it doesn’t always organize its themes well, causing some passages to lose focus. The co-authored book is largely presented in the third person, with occasional first-person passages by Morris interspersed throughout, and readers may wish that the book addressed some aspects of her story with more depth. That said, her story stands well on its own terms.

An often inspiring story of a determined woman.