Lost: Amelia Earhart's Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life by Rachel Hartigan

Book Synopsis:

When Amelia Earhart’s plane disappeared in 1937, the clues poured in, attracting wild conspiracies about her tragic fate.

In Lost, former National Geographic reporter Rachel Hartigan delves into Earhart’s disappearance, introducing a host of eccentric characters who have become obsessed with finding the truth. Did the great aviator crash land near the Marshall Islands, only to be captured by Japanese soldiers? Did she manage to land on Nikumaroro Island but die of injury or starvation? Or did she run out of fuel and crash into the ocean?

Interspersed with the search for Earhart is the story of her extraordinary her unstable childhood, her itinerant early career, and how a PR-savvy publisher transformed her into an aviation icon and became her husband in an unconventional marriage.

In the spirit of nonfiction blockbusters like The Lost City of Z, Hartigan draws us into the world of Earhart's devotees and unspools a beguiling tale. The theories lead Hartigan from the pilot's birthplace of Atchison, Kansas to an expedition on a remote Pacific Island, where forensic dogs attempt to recover a potential sample of Earhart’s DNA.

As tantalizing new evidence mounts, Hartigan and her fellow investigators descend deeper into a world of conspiracy and obsession. Through its irresistible characters and prodigious research, Lost reveals not just why we remember Amelia Earhart as a trailblazer and adventurer, but why unsolved mysteries keep us forever searching for answers.

My Review:

Note: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley

3.75/5 stars. This book was super interesting and well-reported. It was part biography of Amelia Earhart, part exploration of three main theories of her disappearance, and had a little analysis of human psychology thrown in. My main complaint is that it took such a long time to get through. I loved the format and I learned a lot, but my enjoyment started to waver once I had been reading it for almost two months.

I've never read a long form piece of feature journalism like this before, but I loved the style. Even though it was full of historical details and in-depth reporting, it was presented as a compelling narrative. There were multiple "narratives" being reported on—Earhart's life, the captured theory, the castaway theory, and the sank theory—but I could follow them all clearly. The introduction, which almost acted as a sort of prologue, where the author described her journey to the island was great. It was very engaging and used vivid sensory details. That didn't continue much throughout the book, but the author maintained a similar style.

Half of this book's chapters were Earhart's biography. I was familiar with her generally, but mostly for her flying, so there was a ton I didn't know. She was actually a really cool person for more than just being a pilot. She was kind of a jack-of-all-trades, working as a nurse, a teacher, a social worker, and, of course, a pilot at different points in her life. Even her personality was her cool. She was adventurous both physically and mentally. She fought for women's rights, but not in a super modern feminist way like people might imagine, which I appreciated.

The other chapters covered some theories people have had over the years since her death. Some were very clearly wrong, and frustratingly so, but others were pretty plausible. The order they were placed in went from least to most believable, so I'll talk about all of them.

The first and earliest one, which claims that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were captured, was the craziest. There were different branches of this theory, like one that said they were spies and captured by the Japanese to prevent them from revealing anything. Every similar theory came out of so much biased or straight-up fabricated info. As a journalist, it was frustrating to read about the shoddy "journalism" produced by some of the proponents of these theories. They took an idea based on one inkling and ran with it, then ignored any evidence to the contrary and claimed sources with differing information were unreliable or not remembering correctly. Despite how easily disproven many of their claims were, these people still held to their claims.

The second theory goes that Earhart and Noonan crashed and became stranded on an island. I appreciated that those who investigated this one actually tried to find strong evidence and were in-depth with their research. It was cool to learn about how experts can reassemble bones to try to match them up with a source. The dogs who can sniff out remains were also an interesting aspect. While this theory had a few holes and evidence that didn't fully match, it had a lot more going for it than the previous one.

The final theory, and the one I think makes the most sense, is simply that the plane crashed into the ocean and sank. There was much less info and explanation on this theory, probably because it's a newer idea, but what is there is compelling. Looking at the circumstances, there were actually a lot of ways that Amelia wasn't as prepared as she could have been, which likely got her off-course and caused a crash over the ocean. Even though the plane has yet to be found, the ocean is massive so it could still be there somewhere.

In the end, the author made a big point that all this theorizing kind of does a disservice to Earhart and her family. In all the obsessing over what might've happened, people forget that they're talking about a real woman whose family was affected by the loss. I loved the question the author posed at the end: "Amelia's closest relatives endured the unresolved nature of her death and their grief for the rest of their days. Why can't we?"

Despite all of its merits, the pacing of this book really lowered the reading experience for me. I normally get through books pretty fast, but this one took me almost two months. It's not even that long, only about 300 pages, so I'm not sure why it dragged. Maybe it was the alternating chapter format, or maybe the dense content, but I found myself getting tired of reading it at times. I was always going to finish it because it was interesting, I just wished it felt like less of a slog.

Content:

Language: d*mn, sh*t, b*tch, f*cking, all from quotes

Sexual Content: mentions of extramarital affairs

Violence/Gore: a mention of the dead remains of a young child

Drugs/Alcohol: Amelia's father was an alcoholic, and another person mentioned struggled with alcoholism

Other: there is a quote included from someone who is a "trans rights activist"