Ernest K. Gann’s Fate Is The Hunter may be the most interesting and entertaining aviation memoir you’ll ever read.
High Point: Gann’s memoir reads like a novel with fascinating adventure after fascinating adventure.
Low Point: None
Author: Ernest K. Gann
Publication Date: 1961
Genre: Aviation
Project Gutenberg: Not available
LibriVox: Not available
Movie/TV Adaptation: Fate is the Hunter (1964)
Ernest K. Gann’s Fate Is The Hunter may be the most interesting and entertaining aviation memoir you’ll ever read.
Gann covers his career as a commercial airline pilot from the late 1930s into the 1950s as the industry and the technology was still developing. He covers his entire career from his initial training activities at American Airlines through his retirement. In between, he tells about ferrying airliners like DC-3s to South America. He talks about his war years flying supplies, wounded soldiers and VIPs across the Atlantic to Europe, Africa and Asia. He winds up by discussing the circumstances that led to his retirement as an airline pilot.
Fate Is The Hunter is not a clinical description of flying and airline operations. Instead, Gann’s memoir reads like a novel, depicting story after story of adventure in a variety of aircraft with his colorful colleagues. His stories include close calls while dealing with weather, limited fuel, or cantankerous aircraft. Then there’s the time he almost flew an overloaded aircraft into the Taj Mahal.
In fact, many of the experiences in this book were the inspiration for his novels such as The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky.
Throughout the book, Gann is open when he has concerns and fears, and even one incident which he considered his act of cowardice. That personal aspect makes this book that much more appealing.
Fate Is The Hunter is the book you won’t want to end.
