Book Blog Tour – Landing in my Present by Mary Clark

LANDING IN MY PRESENT
by

Mary Clark

Biography / Aviation / Historical / WWII

Publisher: Hellgate Press
Date of Publication: June 15, 2020
Number of Pages: 218

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Mary Walker Clark barely knew her father. When he died, he left not only the obvious void every teen would experience, but took with him scores of Indiana Jones-style tales about flying the Hump, a treacherous series of US missions that transported supplies over the Himalayas to China during World War II. 
It would take a chance interview with a pilot who had flown with her father in the war to launch a series of extraordinary journeysinto a shrouded past and halfway around the globe to India and Chinafor Clark to finally come to know the father whose absence had haunted her for decades. 
Landing in My Present chronicles the adventures of a daughter who chose to pry open a painful past while enlarging her view of an adventurous father long thought lost.

Like the author, I really enjoyed getting to know more about her father through the correspondence she found in the old trunk from the students he taught in the flight school; as well as the treasure trove of old pictures she went through much later with her brother. It was interesting to get some of the details of the different types of planes that were being introduced in that time, and I enjoyed the anecdotes the former students shared about their time with her father. It was like this man was coming alive for me too.

The letters she cobbled together from interviews, imagining they were letters her father would have sent home during his time flying the Hump, were packed with war history that many people don’t know. History books have much more details of battles in the major war fronts, and this fan of history was happy to learn more, as will any other history buff.

The author does a very good job in showing how looking at the past history of our family members can often bring us to a greater understanding of ourselves. And that is certainly what the title of this book, Landing in my Present, means. By sharing the journey that her father took so many years ago was like giving him an imaginary plane to land in her backyard where he would then step out of the plane today. Much like he did in real life at one of the family gatherings.

What the author learned, and experienced, once she got to India and walked the ground where her father had walked was the most touching, and I wish we’d have gotten to that journey sooner in the story. It would have made all the other remembrances that much more interesting and poignant.

Still, I don’t hesitate to recommend this book to all readers, not just history buffs.

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YOU TUBE

Mary Walker Clark is a retired attorney turned travel writer who loves taking readers with her to worldwide destinations. She has been traveling independently and internationally for over fifty years. Her essays may be found in the Paris News, at her blog, “Mary Clark, Traveler,” and her podcasts at KETR 88.9, an NPR affiliate. Clark is an award-winning member of the North American Travel Journalists Association and a contributor to Still Me, … After All These Years, 24 Writers Reflect on Aging. 
 
In 2016, Clark traveled to India and China to follow her father’s WWII footsteps when he was a Hump pilot flying over the Himalayas. Her journey to connect with him fifty years after his death is told in her book, Landing in My Present
Clark is a fifth generation Texan living in Paris, Texas. 

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THREE WINNERS 

FIRST WINNER: $25 Amazon card 
SECOND WINNER: Signed copy of Landing in My Present
THIRD WINNER: $15 Amazon card.
 July 21-July 31, 2020
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4 thoughts on “Book Blog Tour – Landing in my Present by Mary Clark”

    1. It was my pleasure to do the review.Thanks to you and Lone Star Literary for working so hard to support authors and introduce readers to new stories.

  1. Dear Maryann,

    Thank you for such a positive review and I’m very happy you enjoyed getting to know my father, too. The plane was such a central part of my father’s life and it did take the journey to India and China to really understand his attachment. I hope you’re sharing your memories with the next generation. I’m trying.

    1. Mary, I enjoyed getting to know you through the book, too. I recently wrote a book about my mother’s life that is billed as a novel of real life. There are some historical facts in the story, but so much of it became scenes I made up, that it didn’t fit straight biography as a category. I’m working on my memoir – slowly – and that will be something for people after me. Happy writing!

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