In full flight A story of Africa and atonement

John Hylan Heminway, 1944-

Book - 2018

"The revelatory account of a woman's quest for a new life in Africa in the wake of World War II--a heroic career that hid a dark wartime past"--

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BIOGRAPHY/Spoerry, Anne
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Subjects
Genres
Biographies
Published
New York : Alfred A. Knopf 2018.
Language
English
Main Author
John Hylan Heminway, 1944- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
316 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 279-314).
ISBN
9781524732974
9780525434535
  • Prologue: The End
  • Chapter 1. That's All I'll Say
  • Chapter 2. If
  • Chapter 3. La Coquille
  • Chapter 4. We Are Finished
  • Chapter 5. A Pukka Place
  • Chapter 6. The Emergency
  • Chapter 7. The Piper
  • Chapter 8. Miss Mary
  • Chapter 9. L'Enfer des Femmes
  • Chapter 10. Begin the Beguine
  • Chapter 11. Dr. Claude
  • Chapter 12. No. 40 Flat Heels
  • Chapter 13. Rabble of Communist Fomenters
  • Chapter 14. The Scorecard
  • Chapter 15. The Wrong Side of the Binoculars
  • Chapter 16. I Know What I'm Doing
  • Chapter 17. I'll Be Back
  • Chapter 18. Hiding in Full View
  • Epilogue: In Memoriam, Africa
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Illustration Credits
Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* This incredible biography of Anne Spoerry does what its subject never could, give the full account of her life. Moved by Spoerry's widely attended Kenyan funeral in 1999, Heminway (Yonder: A Place in Montana, 2000) decided to write this soaring tribute to the beloved Mama Daktari. A freelance journalist always hunting interesting subjects, Heminway had sought Spoerry out 20 years earlier after hearing of the white woman doctor who flew her own plane all across Kenya to help hundreds of thousands of Africans in medical need. Yet Spoerry stonewalled Heminway whenever he asked about her pre-African past. After her death, Heminway researched historical sources, including documents Spoerry previously guarded in a personal safe, that detailed her WWII experiences and were horrifyingly worthy of suppression. Spoerry's seeming altruism in Africa had moral failures in Europe as its driver. The biography features dramatic elements: a reckoning with Africa, an individual who spent 50 years defying social conventions to save lives, and a secret past. Even so, the primary pleasure of this book is Heminway's interrogations of his own motives and mind as well as Spoerry's. This book is an exceptionally compelling contemplation on life's meaning, the nature of humanity, and whether atonement is achievable.--Dziuban, Emily Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Filmmaker Heminway (African Journeys) focuses his sixth book on the impressive career and mysterious past of Anne Spoerry (1918-1999), a French-born doctor who spent the last five decades of her life in rural Kenya, where she nearly eradicated small pox and polio and single-handedly treated over a million patients. Heminway draws on journals and extensive interviews with those who knew Spoerry in Africa and Europe. In his vivid, often riveting work, Heminway reveals Spoerry's little-known collaboration with the Nazis during her internment in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where, she later confessed, she administered fatal doses of medication to other inmates while working as a doctor. Sent to Ravensbrück because of her work in the French Resistance, Spoerry was put under the tutelage of Carmen Mory, "the Black Angel," who Heminway views as a driving force in Spoerry's decision to kill patients. Barred from practicing medicine in France and Switzerland, Spoerry found work on a ship headed to Africa in 1948, where she eventually settled and was able to conceal and atone for her past. Heminway captures his subject's staggeringly complex past as well as the vitality of the continent that became her home in this unflinching and evocative work. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

How does one weigh past evils against future good deeds? This is the central question of this at times compelling, at times vexing biographical sketch.Dr. Anne Marie Spoerry (1918-1999) spent 50 years in East Africa, primarily in Kenya, serving local people. She was a "flying doctor" who, utilizing her pilot's license and a rickety but reliable old plane, traveled to remote areas to provide much-needed health care to generations of Kenyans. "Mama Daktari" was a legend to thousands. But she also held deep secrets. During World War II, Spoerry had worked in the French Resistance against the Nazis; when she was caught, she ended up at the notorious Ravensbrck camp. Subsequently, she kept her war experiences almost wholly to herself, in part because she surely suffered, but also because while there, she compromisedas any of us might haveand utilized access to a likely paramour, as well as her medical experience, to better position herself. In so doing, she tortured and killed other prisoners and sent others to their deaths. Heminway (Yonder: A Place in Montana, 2000, etc.), a writer and documentary filmmaker who has won two Emmys and two Peabody Awards, spends a great deal of time investigating Spoerry's actions at Ravensbrck though surprisingly little exploring how to weigh them in light of her unquestionably virtuous deeds for the final decades of her life. Thus, the cranky white savior-type doctor (with awful bedside manner) who may have also collaborated with the Nazis becomes both hero and villain, as the author fails to interrogate the meaning of these contradictions. Furthermore, Heminway refers throughout to "Africa," as if Africa the continent is an undifferentiated mass. He is telling a story almost exclusively based in Kenya, and yet he discusses Africa and Africans as if this massive continent of 1.2 billion people is a single country.A fascinating story in an occasionally frustrating recounting. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof*** Copyright © 2018 John Heminway Prologue:  THE END On February 6, 1999, a mob of yellow-billed kites circled Wilson Airport in Kenya, the busiest civil aviation hub in all Africa. The carrion birds had just left the nearby Nairobi slum of Kibera and were exploiting an uncommon void in the airspace over the runways. They might have been honor guards as they circled above a cortege of Land Cruisers, sedans, and buses out of which poured mourners: women in dated frocks and men stiff in regimental blazers, shiny at the elbow from age. Here and there, Ismaili and Sikh women, exiting minivans, arranged their saris. The great majority of arrivals were African, dressed in clothes reserved for church, weddings, and death. Within the hangar only a few found seats; otherwise, it was standing room only. None could recall Wilson Airport so hushed, with all airplanes tied down, as a mark of respect. East Africa was in mourning for its celebrated flying doctor Anne Spoerry (pronounced Shpeuri), felled by a stroke four days previously at age eighty, still in harness to her life's calling, helping the rural poor. Over a thousand people found space in the Flying Doctors' hangar to pay last respects. The ceremony rang with the solemnity of a state funeral. Many had traveled from overseas, and no sector of Kenyan society was lacking. Infants strapped to their mothers' backs, creaky-limbed elders, a colorful array of tribes, Asian merchants, Europeans, Americans, government ministers, the diplomatic corps, and unattended children all jostled for sight lines in the echoing metal building. Dr. Anne Spoerry had spent nearly fifty years in Africa, tending to the health of over a million patients, drawn mostly from the far corners of Kenya. It was said no other physician could match her industry, tenacity, and productivity in the cause of Africa's wellbeing. As a sole lifeline for the poor, it was not uncommon for patients to declare her a saint. In the hangar the mourners were a study in devotion, stifling coughs, eyes flickering from emotion, minds reliving the triumphs of her life. The sight of Spoerry's Piper Lance PA-32 plane, known throughout Kenya as "Zulu Tango" from its call sign, 5Y-AZT, drew many to reach for handkerchiefs. Positioned front and center, both coffin and airplane were draped in tropical garlands. For those who once awaited Anne on ribbon-thin airstrips, this Africa-scarred machine spoke of endurance and courage. Zulu Tango had been their sole glimmer of hope in a land begging for miracles. Over the course of Spoerry's long career, no place had been too far, no airstrip too risky, no patient beyond caring. Inside the echoing hangar, eulogies ran long, with every speaker heaping praise on the doctor for her no-nonsense style, strength, and compassion. An elderly woman whose broken arm Dr. Spoerry had set years before likened her to Mother Teresa. Another called her "an angel from heaven." Wherever she landed, she was greeted as "Mama Daktari," Mother Doctor--a sobriquet that met with Anne's hearty approval. When an unscheduled speaker, footsore from travel, rushed the podium, mourners checked their programs to see if they had missed something. He was a tall, dignified farmer, dressed in his one suit, confected with the red dust of Africa, and a tie that was black and borrowed. All leaned forward to hear his love sonnet. In linen-soft words, he declared that Dr. Spoerry had saved not just him but entire villages. He was here at the urging of his community to reassure all Dr. Spoerry would never be forgotten--not in the far corners of Africa, in this generation or the next. When he finished with a barely audible "God bless you, Mama Daktari," the Kenya Boys' Choir burst into Ave Maria. Soon the chanting bridged into a song of old Africa with one lone alto, repeating "kaa maisho marefu," live forever, against an alto chorus and the beating aorta of a drum. The finale cued six strong men to lever open the hangar doors. As they did, a laser beam of noonday sun formed a corona over Zulu Tango, prompting a woman to confide, "The doors of heaven just opened." Pallbearers hoisted the casket into the hold, then jockeyed the plane onto the apron. Outside, a throng of Wilson Airport personnel, most in coveralls, bowed their heads to honor the woman who, for over thirty-five years, they had guided safely home. Dispensing with preflight checks, the Flying Doctors' chief pilot, Jim Heather-Hayes, red up Zulu Tango's engine and was soon airborne. Almost immediately, he dropped a wing and banked hard. He had one last time-honored African ritual to perform before setting off for an Indian Ocean island, 290 miles to the east. Leaning into the controls, he drove Zulu Tango at the hangar, scattering the kites and missing the roof by mere feet. Later he recalled that as he rocketed over the heads of the mourners, the uttering white handkerchiefs evoked a white-capped sea. Once he had burst through equatorial clouds, Heather-Hayes set a course for the coast. From the ground, even when Zulu Tango was a mere pinprick, a few mourners continued to wave, as if trying to will Anne Spoerry back, for one last farewell. Many viewed her final flight as a death knell of individualism, a paean to an older Africa of boundless dreams and extravagant passions. But Africa has a gift for concealment. This funeral was not only a tribute to a much-loved caregiver but also a triumph of transformation. In 1948, when Anne Spoerry set foot in Africa for the first time, she was consumed by two dreams: one was to disappear, the other to start over. Admittedly, she was not the first to use the continent for cover. With great spaces and laws begging to be broken, Africa lends itself to secrets. In Anne's case, it rearranged a past of staggering complexity into a future of endless possibilities. Even now after half a century, her secrets were still safe. Among those who loved her--I include myself--no one knew what plights she once faced, how she had survived them, or the miraculous way she reinvented herself on this continent of endless beginnings. At the time of Anne's death, I, like the rest, believed her decades in Africa was the only narrative that counted. So overcome was I by Africa's loving farewell and my own fresh memories of her I would set out to write her biography. In it I would showcase the exponential power of the individual--how one astonishing soul can bring hope to the world's forgotten, on a colossal scale. Mine would be a tribute to Anne's indefatigable will to better the lives of the down- trodden, an affectionate memoir of a blazing career, propelled by idealism on the greatest stage of all--Africa. Then I learned the truth.     Chapter One: That's All I'll Say     I first began chasing down Anne Spoerry long ago, in 1979. At the time I knew only headlines, with dozens of questions left unanswered. Was she French or Swiss? Was it conceivable she had only learned to fly late in her forties? What drove her to risk her life for a cause virtually of her own creation? Why had she never married? Was it true the desert nomads of Northern Kenya know exactly the hour and which thorn tree when where to gather by to await the sound of her approaching plane? Who did she answer to? Why did she conceal her past? Why had she really come to Africa? Friends resorted to generalities, painting Anne Spoerry with the broadest of brushes: skilled aviator, gifted doctor and rousing character. As a freelance journalist, I was regularly on the lookout for heroes and originals, and Anne Spoerry seemed to tick off all the right boxes: a bigger-than-life personality, exceedingly self-reliant, and driven to fulfill a remarkable African calling, on her own terms. I began with a formal letter requesting an interview. No response. I wrote again and again she did not answer. Finally, in February 1980, I called. The exchange was brief. Dr. Spoerry said she had no time for journalists and nothing to contribute to an article. Her terseness put me off. Was this a show of modesty or bad temper? Did she really believe her life was of no interest? In March, I called again. This time she answered straight away and sounded a different note--she was curious, faintly warm and, best of all, had five minutes to spare that afternoon. The date was 10 March 1980. With thunderheads heaped above the Ngong Hills, I drove to her office, closeted in a pre-war bungalow beside Nairobi's Wilson Airfield. She greeted me in mechanical monosyllables that cut through the high-octane rev of a country in love with aviation. Her firm handshake hinted that she had done her share of rotating props on bush strips and winching Land Rovers out of swollen rivers. As I settled into a straight-backed chair and jimmied my notebook from my bush jacket, I followed her scalpel eyes and did my best to affect an air of calm. With Dr. Spoerry I hoped to discover a common core--a shared passion for Africa. Should we become friends one day, I would tell her my Africa tale--how, as a 16-year old, I set sail along with three other schoolboys and a self-proclaimed explorer, for Cape Town on the Winchester Castle, a refurbished Liberty Ship; how from the moment the ship's horn sounded in Southampton, the word, "Africa," became a fixation, tantalizing me with freedom I lacked at home. My fellow passengers appeared to have stepped out of a Somerset Maugham short story. A freshly minted missionary was bound for an outpost in Northern Rhodesia; a breakfast beer drinker, having failed as a prizefighter, was returning to Natal to take up sugar farming. One Lancashire family sought their fortune in the mines of Southern Rhodesia, a saucy girl, disappointed by Britain, was returning to Piketberg to grow apples and to break up with her tiresome boyfriend. By the makeshift pool, and in a dark paneled saloon, I threw liars' dice, drank Pimms Cups, listened to tales of the veldt , and tapped my foot in time to songs of the Great Trek. I had staked everything that in Africa, I, all of 16, would find my way. Braced for transformation, I spent the last night of the two-week passage lying on hemp ropes in the bow. When dawn mists cleared, Cape Town's perimeter landmark, Table Mountain, all lavender, towered to port. Soon, Malay stevedores jousted us to the dock. The gangplank was barely in place when I took my first African footstep. Straightaway I crossed a threshold into the epic. It only got better. In South West Africa we climbed into a cave with a 2000-year-old petroglyph of a warrior, in the Kalahari Bushmen fled from our Land Rover and, at night herds of elephants ghosted past our cots, under the stars. When I fished the Zambezi, amber eyes cut the river's surface and ghosted towards my knobby knees. Stunned and seduced by Africa's ferocity, generosity, and primal heart, I barely slept for two months. Now in Anne Spoerry's office, after twenty years of knocking about the continent, I was ready to acknowledge a kindred spirit. Surely, she too must be a victim of "le mal d'Afrique," the Africa passion. As she organized the clutter on her desk, my eyes ranged around the room. On a shelf lay a model of a dhow , the wooden ships that traded along the East African coast for well over 2000 years. To the right were Makonde carvings of stylized, emaciated women, propped against thick medical tomes. She had not yet bothered to frame a munificent commendation honoring her "ten years of service to the Foundation," signed by "His Excellency Hon. Daniel arap Moi, The President of the Republic of Kenya and Commander in Chief of the Kenya Armed Forces." Notebooks were stacked willy-nilly on her desk, and at her feet, lay two kikapus , sisal baskets, bursting with the bouquet of fresh fruit and vegetables. The moment I began my pitch, Dr. Spoerry interrupted: "OK, meet me tomorrow morning at eight. Sharp. Otherwise I leave."  Excerpted from In Full Flight: A Story of Africa and Atonement All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.