Rebecca's Thoughts

Previously published in Best Books of September & October 2023

Come Fly The World – Julia Cooke
Non-Fiction, Travel, Feminism, History

Goodreads Synopsis:
Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men–era of commercial flight, Pan Am World Airways attracted the kind of young woman who wanted out, and wanted up
Required to have a college degree, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3″ and 5′9″, between 105

and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire. Julia Cooke’s intimate storytelling weaves together the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters, from Lynne Totten, a science major who decided life in a lab was not for her, to Hazel Bowie, one of the relatively few black stewardesses of the era, as they embraced the liberation of their new jet-set life.
Cooke brings to life the story of Pan Am stewardesses’ role in the Vietnam War, as the airline added runs from Saigon to Hong Kong for planeloads of weary young soldiers straight from the battlefields, who were off for five days of R&R, and then flown back to war. Finally, with Operation Babylift—the dramatic evacuation of 2,000 children during the fall of Saigon—the book’s special cast of stewardesses unites to play an extraordinary role on the world stage.

I think people often associate stewardess as being somewhat of an objectifying occupation, and while there is credibility there, this book showed a different side to the life of Pan Am flight attendants. The job gave women a sense of agency and adventure that they were previously not allowed and I think the book does an amazing job of illustrating this through the women interviewed and written about. The stories in this book are fascinating, and the life that these women lived is amazing to me, I could honestly just read another book of stories from this job and the wild things that were done.
This is a book that has been on my TBR for a while and I finally got the chance to read it this month. It was worth the wait and is something that I can’t stop thinking about! The writing was super accessible and I thought the style of the book was easy to follow and the mixed POVs allowed for continuous momentum. This book is now among my top favourite nonfiction books and is one people should read if they are interested in travel, Pan Am, or history.