1962, a time when jobs are just opening up for women. The elegant international carrier, Pan American Airlines, is hiring. COME FLY WITH ME revisits this life, heady and exciting yet tightly restricted. The money doesn’t seem to have been wonderful, but the fictional women we follow are more concerned with the freedom offered by the job.
Hopeful Pan Am stewardesses have to apply by letter, travel to New York and sit in an interview. Few make the cut and some of those will not finish the weeks of training. Judy Goodman from Pennsylvania secretly applies, then lies that she is unmarried. Her husband Henry is a controlling bully and she’s desperate to leave him. At this time, there don’t seem to have been shelters or legal protections. Her neighbour Ronelle Rorbaugh helps her to make arrangements, and she gets the call.
Beverly Caldwell lives in New York, a socialite like her mother, who started as a secretary and married her boss. He now runs Wall Street. Rather than be married off to a suitable man, Beverly wants to lead a life of independence, and she’s confident she can meet Pan Am’s high standards. Both Beverly and Judy adore Frank Sinatra's 'Come Fly With Me' album, and when they train together, they make a list of the places he names, determined to visit them all. Paris, Honolulu, Hong Kong, and London, seem so glamorous and exotic. First, they have to learn to make a steak dinner and salad in three minutes and carry six cups of coffee on a tray. And smile. Always smile, even on a life raft.
If you’ve read Coffee, Tea and Me, the original memoir book about stewardesses, you’ll be familiar with the ‘stew zoo’, the buildings which rented rooms to stewardesses. The book explained that many landlords didn’t want to rent to them as they might leave without paying, hold drink parties, and cram more renters into a house than expected. The film of the book was a completely different fiction story. Beverly and Judy don’t go into detail, but they do get a room with two beds in a stew zoo, within walking distance of the airport where they are based.
I like the rules and regulations, and great excitement. However, for women so determined to explore, it’s surprising that both of them quickly made romances, and seemed to favour marriage. We’re told the turnover of their job was eighteen months, because the confident, lovely women often married passengers. Camille Di Maio has researched carefully for the thought-provoking COME FLY WITH ME, and I love the retro cover. Anyone interested in women’s history will do well to try this 1960s story.
It’s 1962, the dawn of the jet-set era. Hope takes flight for two Pan Am stewardesses navigating an adventurous new life in a novel about love, friendship, and escape by the bestselling author of The Memory of Us and Until We Meet.
Welcome to a glamorous gateway to the jet age.
Judy Goodman and Beverly Caldwell have different reasons for putting continents and oceans between themselves and their disparate pasts, but they have the same desire—to earn a coveted position on an elite team of stewardesses for Pan American Airlines. For Judy, running away from an oppressive marriage in small-town Pennsylvania is a risk she must take. And for Beverly, leaving behind the gilded cage of New York society will allow her to pursue a future of her own making.
Embracing the culture, etiquette, and strict rules of a thrilling and unpredictable new world above the clouds, Judy and Beverly are bound for faraway destinations and opportunities that other women dare only to dream about. But as they build a deep friendship, encounter love and danger, and discover what’s truly important, Judy and Beverly must also confront the secrets that could change their lives all over again—and forever.
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