Ever since she disappeared over the Pacific in 1937, Amelia Earhart has been a mystery to historians and aviation fans. It’s widely believed that her Lockhead Electra crashed somewhere over the open waters. But what if she crashed intentionally so she could live out her life with a female partner?
That’s the scenario imagined by author Mary Walker Baron in her book But This is Different (Steel Cut Press, $14.99), which begins at the dawn of 1979 and follows a much older Amelia who has resided on a secluded Pacific Island for 40 years awaiting the arrival of her true love.
Surprisingly, Walker Baron hasn’t always been an Amelia Earhart fan. But the idea of the iconic pioneer in the women’s movement as a lesbian living out her life in seclusion was a story she always wanted to tell.
“I think she certainly occupies a place in everyone’s imagination, and for some reason people just can’t seem to let her go,” Walker Baron says. “Something about her captivates our imagination. So many people have disappeared at sea, but we collectively can’t let this woman go.”
While on the surface, the story may sound like a “lesbian love story,” it is so much more. The plot brings an 80-year-old Amelia back to New York, where she must find her ailing love, who is well-known and quite powerful in her field. (Spoiler alert, her long-lost love is Margaret Mead).
Crafting a fictionalized account of a historical figure or event is a popular trend in literature and in Hollywood. Take, for example, the blockbuster Titanic, which weaves a fictional story among a historically accurate account of the mega-ship’s sinking.
But This is Different is similar in that it details historical facts while spinning a very plausible tale.
“I literally had the idea when I was stuck in traffic,” Baron Walker says. “I thought, ‘What if Margaret Mead and Amelia Earhart were lovers?’ It totally came out of the blue.”
The author says she sat on the idea for about 10 years before she finally sat down at the keyboard. There, she found that history made room for her version of events. She had to change the premise slightly, and the tale soon followed Amelia’s journey to New York City, where she is summoned by a dying Margaret Mead requesting her presence at her death bed.
“To keep history intact, I had to bring Amelia out of the Pacific and I realized that explaining fax machines, compuserve and a modern 1970s New York City to Amelia Earhart would make a very fascinating story.”
A difficult journey
The historical accuracy in the book is incredible, and Walker Baron said that any resources she used were dated from the 1970s. For example, when describing Amelia’s frustrating and confusing experience with the city’s subway system, Walker Baron referenced a 1978 map of the routes that existed at the time.
“We all find ourselves in situations that are so foreign to ourselves and we have to figure out how to navigate those systems,” Walker Baron said. “So the complication for me was that while Amelia had been to New York before, the city she knew was a completely different New York than what she experiences late in life. This version doesn’t have ticker-tape parades for her.
“This New York if familiar, yet unfamiliar. Her experience in the city was as a 30-something, iconic woman. Her return is as an 80-year-old woman who is disoriented and searching for landmarks that no longer exist.”
Along the way, Amelia meets a cast of supporting characters, from a homeless Vietnam veteran who heads up a rag-tag band and prominent officials of the city who see the aviatrix as crazy and homeless, to a nurse who is responsible for Amelia’s care in a mental facility later on in the book.
“I didn’t want to make life easy for her,” Baron Walker admits. “If I had, it wouldn’t have been as good of a story.”
Sexual orientation as an afterthought
Dealing with a historical figure can be tricky, especially when an author re-imagines his or her sexual orientation. But for Walker Baron, visualizing Amelia as a lesbian was not difficult, nor central to the story of But This is Different.
“In all honesty, I wasn’t trying to get an particular action from people,” Walker Baron says. “I was just telling a story. One reader told me that she had difficulty imagining Amelia Earhart as a lesbian. I reminded her that I made that up. I have no idea what her true sexual orientation was, and I don’t think it matters. Readers should go beyond the women’s orientations and hopefully see this story as making a powerful point about the depth of relationships and the depth of commitment.”
Margaret Mead’s real-life daughter read Walker Baron’s book, and she not only told the author she enjoyed the tale, but that she wished her luck with the success of the book.
The tale within its pages is difficult to describe, Walker Baron admits. But This is Different could be a mystery, a conspiracy story, an adventure or a love story.
“Truly, it’s a human story,” she says. “It speaks to the human condition and it’s so much more than a same-sex love story and it’s more than historical fiction.”
It speaks to how people love, Walker Baron says, and how people in general love while maintaining their integrity.
“People need to know that there is integrity and that we make promises that we can’t always keep and we have to realize how that affects people,” Walker Baron says. “We have to embrace life wherever our circumstance finds us. And that’s my story of Amelia Earhart.”
More Info:
WHAT: But This Is Different
WHO: Mary Walker Baron
WHERE: Amazon.com, Nook and Kindle
WEB: ButThisIsDifferent.com
