Highway to the Sky: An Aviator’s Journey
Lola Reid Allin
She Writes Press
www.shewritespress.com
9781647428006, $18.99, PB, 344pp

https://www.amazon.com/Highway-Sky-Lola-Reid-Allin/dp/1647428009

Synopsis: “Don’t be silly! Girls can’t fly”, seven-year-old Lola’s father admonishes her as they fly across Canada on a commercial flight in 1962. She is crushed — but decides he must be right. She’s only ever seen male pilots, after all.

“Highway to the Sky: An Aviator’s Journey” by Lola Reid Allin begins during the empty zone of women in aviation, a three-decade drought following WWII when men reclaimed the jobs that had been performed by women during the war and then forced women back to diapers and dishes, where they “belonged” when the war ended.

Despite Lola’s childhood desire to avoid the straitjacket of traditional female roles and become a pilot, her desperate need for unconditional affection after a lonesome childhood sways her determination. At age twenty, she leaps into marriage and motherhood. Four years, one toxic relationship, and one private pilot license later, she leaves her husband, even though she knows she’ll be censured by friends, family, and 1970s society at large.

Lola’s head-on battle with tradition continues as the lone female pilot in her advanced flight training program and on the job as a flight instructor, bush pilot, charter pilot, and commuter airline pilot between 1979 and 1993. Flying is challenging at times, yes — but her true obstacles are the hostility, sabotage, and discrimination she faces in her industry. She perseveres, however. Ultimately, flying is what gives her the courage to regain control of her life — and helps her find personal happiness and fulfilment.

Critique: With females making up just 5% of the world’s pilots, this memoir crosses genres to combine aviation history, the Lola Reid Allin’s journey from unwanted child to successful pilot, and the feminist experience, and will appeal to multiple aviation communities. An inherently fascinating, impressively insightful, and ultimately inspiring memoir, “Highway to the Sky: An Aviator’s Journey” is the extraordinary story of an extraordinary woman who pursued her life dream and succeeded against all odds as a woman in what was considered ‘a man’s world’. Exceptionally well written and fully engaging from start to finish, “Highway to the Sky: An Aviator’s Journey” is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists, as well as community and college/university library Contemporary Women’s Biography/Memoir collections. It should be noted that “Highway to the Sky: An Aviator’s Journey” is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $12.99) as well.

Editorial Note: Lola Reid Allin (www.lolareidallin.com) is a former commercial airline transport pilot, flight instructor, as well as a SCUBA divemaster and an award-winning author and photographer whose work has appeared in national newspapers and publications and in juried national and international shows. Her professional aviation affiliations include Women in Aviation International, The 99s: International Organization of Women Pilots, and the Northern Lights Aero Foundation.