PRINCE OF THE SKIES

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Jean Mermoz and Henri Guillaumet were three dashing young pilots who worked for the Compagnie Générale Aéropostale, a revolutionary company that expanded the French postal system by developing new international routes. All of them were eventually lost in the air, Guillaumet and Saint-Exupéry during World War II and Mermoz earlier in 1936 when he and Saint-Exupéry were working to establish postal aviation routes in Argentina. This fact-based novel enters into the lives of the three young men, who knew each other at different stages in their careers. We meet Saint-Exupéry in 1922, in love with the beautiful invalid Lou-Lou, who reciprocates his feelings to the annoyance of both their families but demands that he gives up flying after narrowly escaping with his life when his engines failed. Meanwhile Jean Mermoz finds himself cleaning a cesspit on the orders of a brutal air force sergeant, whose girlfriend he later seduces in revenge, and he consoles himself with the enigmatic Madeleine who has access to some interesting white powder. Sensing Lou-Lou's attention turning away, Antoine travels 700 miles to Biarritz to see her, but her pretentious friends are too much for their relationship. Meanwhile Mermoz is promoted to sergeant and decides to break his cocaine habit, sweating out his withdrawal symptoms. He is contemptuous of his colleagues, but the nondescript Guillaumet is an ace pilot who quickly gains his respect. Saint-Exupéry starts writing, a career that will lead to his masterpiece The Little Prince, and he returns to flying, where he too encounters Guillaumet's unassuming genius. Finally at a bar in Toulouse the three pilots get together and their adventurous friendship begins. But the glory days of the international postal service are numbered. 534pp. Remainder mark.