The Lives of Beryl Markham

Rating:
Summary: Finding Beryl Markham
Review: After reading "West with the Night" I wanted to know who is this brilliant woman? The biography is hard to follow because events and persons are mixed in a weird cocktail. The author does not follow a clear story line, has perhaps just as little writing talent as she claims Beryl Markham did. Beryl's uninhibited life in Africa and Los Angeles is documented, but not much credit given to her remarkable talents this woman obviously possessed. Her third husband Raoul Schumacher, a Hollywood ghostwriter, is believably credited with the authorship of "West with the Night". He couldn't have written so well without the vivid recollections about horsebreeding, aviation and animal behavior in Africa by his wife Beryl Markham, whom he adored.
This biography is a hodgepodge through which one most roam to come about facts. Like for instance what kind of monoplane did she fly from London to New York etc.? Was the year 1932?

Rating:
Summary: Finding Beryl Markham
Review: After reading "West with the Night" I wanted to know who is this brilliant woman? The biography is hard to follow because events and persons are mixed in a weird cocktail. The author does not follow a clear story line, has perhaps just as little writing talent as she claims Beryl Markham did. Beryl's uninhibited life in Africa and Los Angeles is documented, but not much credit given to her remarkable talents this woman obviously possessed. Her third husband Raoul Schumacher, a Hollywood ghostwriter, is believably credited with the authorship of "West with the Night". He couldn't have written so well without the vivid recollections about horsebreeding, aviation and animal behavior in Africa by his wife Beryl Markham, whom he adored.
This biography is a hodgepodge through which one most roam to come about facts. Like for instance what kind of monoplane did she fly from London to New York etc.? Was the year 1932?

Rating:
Summary: The Whole Truth
Review: After visiting Africa, I found a fascination for the stories connectiong the British Colonists in Kenya in the early part of the 20th century. White Mischief, a marvelous, decedant mystery was a fun read and movie. I later discovered it was filmed at Giraffe Manor, where we had stayed in Nairobi. So, I thien read West With the Wind, a beautiful, limited account of Beryl. Many questions were unanswered: how could she live in the time of the Happy Valley crowd and now mention them? How could she not mention her mother or other women? And, was she ever married? Then, The Lives of Beryl Markham, excessively well documented, tells all: her willd, African upbringing, her three marriages, her flagrant promescuity, and her dislike of all women. It is very interesting IF you are into this subject. If not, it bogs down after her famous flight and is hard to finish. Almost a textbook. Of special interest: her liasons with the heirs to the British throne!

Rating:
Summary: Questionable evidence
Review: I am only a third of the way through this book, and am already deeply saddened by it's content. After reading "West with the Night," I was anxious to know more about the mysterious Beryl Markham. How common that this book seems to concentrate on her alleged promiscuity rather than on her remarkable achievements for a woman during the 1920's. It reads more like a transcript from a British Jerry Springer episode. It's like going to an art gallery, and listening to some jealous wannabe fool babble on and on about the artist's "intent" or their "mood" during the creation of the piece of art; piecing together their indictment from hearsay. This book would be just grand for subscribers of People magazine.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting woman
Review: I picked up this book after reading West with the Night and Out of Africa. This biography gave me the background needed to understand the drama behind those two books and how the two authors were linked before those books were ever written. Trzebinski painted a detailed picture of the people and life style of the British Colonists surrounding Beryl in Kenya although several times I found myself flipping back to previous pages in order to keep the names straight in my head. Beryl Markham was certainly a stubborn, selfish, promiscuous woman, everything Trzebinski pointed out in this book. What I found tragic was how much less emphasized was her triumph as a pilot compared to her promiscuity. Towards the end of her life, she was more known as the author of West with the Night than as a woman who flew across Atlantic alone. Even on the cover of this biography, the caption on the bottom on the page reads "A biography of the author of West with the Night." But is she really the author of that famous book? You'll have to read this biography to find out.

Rating:
Summary: Did she or didn't she?
Review: Several writers have suggested what is really a sensible solution - Beryl was not an author in the traditional sense, she wrote about her life and experiences, so her efforts when trying to write commercially were plagued by her disinterest and lack of ability. She did write beautifully in West as well as those of her stories presented in the first section of Splendid Outcast, but if you compare them with ones at the end of the book, that the author suggests were probably written jointly with Rauol, the stylistic differences are clear. She was not a "writer" who could churn out material for publication, she could write about the things she knew and loved.

As to being promiscious and occasionally ornery, she saw no reason to act any differently than men acted in her world, and good for her!

Rating:
Summary: Questionable evidence
Review: This author wrote a biography of Denys Finch Hatton in which she doesn't mention any relationship between Beryl Markham and Denys Finch Hatton. Now that Beryl Markham is conveniently dead, she claims there was such a relationship--but she doesn't quote Beryl Markham on the matter. She does give a source--one elderly woman--but this doesn't seem convincing.

This book does bring up another side of the story from the previous biography of Markham ("Straight on Till Morning" by Lovell). It seems to me unusual that Markham never wrote anything after her divorce from Raoul Schumacher, so I believe that she didn't write "West With the Night."

This book is worth reading if you want information to construct your own theories as this author did.