In Full Flight

December 18, 2017
Filmmaker Heminway (African Journeys) focuses his sixth book on the impressive career and mysterious past of Anne Spoerry (1918–1999), a French-born doctor who spent the last five decades of her life in rural Kenya, where she nearly eradicated small pox and polio and single-handedly treated over a million patients. Heminway draws on journals and extensive interviews with those who knew Spoerry in Africa and Europe. In his vivid, often riveting work, Heminway reveals Spoerry’s little-known collaboration with the Nazis during her internment in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where, she later confessed, she administered fatal doses of medication to other inmates while working as a doctor. Sent to Ravensbrück because of her work in the French Resistance, Spoerry was put under the tutelage of Carmen Mory, “the Black Angel,” who Heminway views as a driving force in Spoerry’s decision to kill patients. Barred from practicing medicine in France and Switzerland, Spoerry found work on a ship headed to Africa in 1948, where she eventually settled and was able to conceal and atone for her past. Heminway captures his subject’s staggeringly complex past as well as the vitality of the continent that became her home in this unflinching and evocative work.

January 1, 2018
How does one weigh past evils against future good deeds? This is the central question of this at times compelling, at times vexing biographical sketch.Dr. Anne Marie Spoerry (1918-1999) spent 50 years in East Africa, primarily in Kenya, serving local people. She was a "flying doctor" who, utilizing her pilot's license and a rickety but reliable old plane, traveled to remote areas to provide much-needed health care to generations of Kenyans. "Mama Daktari" was a legend to thousands. But she also held deep secrets. During World War II, Spoerry had worked in the French Resistance against the Nazis; when she was caught, she ended up at the notorious Ravensbruck camp. Subsequently, she kept her war experiences almost wholly to herself, in part because she surely suffered, but also because while there, she compromised--as any of us might have--and utilized access to a likely paramour, as well as her medical experience, to better position herself. In so doing, she tortured and killed other prisoners and sent others to their deaths. Heminway (Yonder: A Place in Montana, 2000, etc.), a writer and documentary filmmaker who has won two Emmys and two Peabody Awards, spends a great deal of time investigating Spoerry's actions at Ravensbruck though surprisingly little exploring how to weigh them in light of her unquestionably virtuous deeds for the final decades of her life. Thus, the cranky white savior-type doctor (with awful bedside manner) who may have also collaborated with the Nazis becomes both hero and villain, as the author fails to interrogate the meaning of these contradictions. Furthermore, Heminway refers throughout to "Africa," as if Africa the continent is an undifferentiated mass. He is telling a story almost exclusively based in Kenya, and yet he discusses Africa and Africans as if this massive continent of 1.2 billion people is a single country.A fascinating story in an occasionally frustrating recounting.

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Starred review from December 1, 2017
This incredible biography of Anne Spoerry does what its subject never could, give the full account of her life. Moved by Spoerry's widely attended Kenyan funeral in 1999, Heminway (Yonder: A Place in Montana, 2000) decided to write this soaring tribute to the beloved Mama Daktari. A freelance journalist always hunting interesting subjects, Heminway had sought Spoerry out 20 years earlier after hearing of the white woman doctor who flew her own plane all across Kenya to help hundreds of thousands of Africans in medical need. Yet Spoerry stonewalled Heminway whenever he asked about her pre-African past. After her death, Heminway researched historical sources, including documents Spoerry previously guarded in a personal safe, that detailed her WWII experiences and were horrifyingly worthy of suppression. Spoerry's seeming altruism in Africa had moral failures in Europe as its driver. The biography features dramatic elements: a reckoning with Africa, an individual who spent 50 years defying social conventions to save lives, and a secret past. Even so, the primary pleasure of this book is Heminway's interrogations of his own motives and mind as well as Spoerry's. This book is an exceptionally compelling contemplation on life's meaning, the nature of humanity, and whether atonement is achievable.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2017

Heminway (No Man's Land), an award-winning filmmaker and writer, traces the story of Dr. Anne Spoerry, a member of the Flying Doctors Service. Spoerry resided in Kenya and was revered among the people she treated as "Mama Daktari." Drawing on journals, long-buried files, and interviews with Spoerry and her friends, Heminway uncovers not only the doctor's heroism and humanitarian efforts in Kenya but also the darker past that led to her emigration from Europe. Born into privilege in Switzerland, Spoerry joined the French Resistance during World War II after the Nazi occupation of France. She was ultimately captured and imprisoned at Ravensbruck, the infamous women's concentration camp in northern Germany. Spoerry fell under the sway of a ruthless and conniving prisoner and either directly caused or aided in the deaths of many other prisoners. Although one gets an inkling of what Spoerry's ultimate transgressions were at the outset, Heminway skillfully builds the suspense throughout and the story still surprises. VERDICT There are no easy answers to glean from this tale of tragedy and atonement. This book is an important work that is sure to provoke discussion about wartime choices, moral courage, and whether it is possible to make amends.--Barrie Olmstead, Sacramento P.L.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2017

"She probably saved more lives than any other individual in east Africa--if not the whole continent," said Richard Leakey of Dr. Anne Spoerry, who settled in Kenya after World War II and joined the Flying Doctors Service, eventually earning the nickname Mama Daktari, or Mother Doctor. But her noble efforts hid her dark past as a collaborator with Nazi high-ups when she was interned at Ravensbruck during the war. Heminway (No Man's Land: A Personal Journey into Africa) is an award-winning filmmaker.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.