I’ve read all three of Ann Hood’s previous memoirs, and one of her novels, so of course I picked up Fly Girl. Hood’s just about the same age as I am, so while I was heading off to grad school and my first professional job as a librarian, she was heading to Breech Academy in Kansas City, TWA’s school for its flight attendants

Hood’s dreams of travel started when she was young, but her mother’s superstitions and early travel as a young mother meant that the family traveled by car, and had few adventures. She decided she would be an airline stewardess when she was eleven, and when it came time to apply for jobs after college, that’s all she applied to do. She says she was the stereotypical type of girl who became an airline stewardess. She was from a small town; loved to travel, and had big dreams. Hood was craving excitement. But, her career as a TWA flight attendance in the late ’70s into the ’80s wasn’t quite what people thought, thanks to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. However, she was a flight attendant for eight years, and she loved her career.

If you’re old enough to remember Coffee, Tea, or Me, a supposed account by two airline stewardesses (actually written by Donald Bain), you might think of the job as a job for sexy women who just wanted a man. And, Hood admits the airlines even sold the job to women as a place to find a husband, while advertising airlines as places with gorgeous women. And, stewardesses were a type, forced to maintain their weight, or lose their job. For many years, they had to be single. Hood covers all of that in her memoir.

This isn’t a Coffee, Tea, or Me tell-all. It’s Hood’s account of the airline industry, especially the last years of TWA. She covers facts, including training, bidding for routes, and the issues on the jets themselves. It’s actually a fascinating memoir of a small-town girl growing in confidence thanks to her chosen career.

Even while she worked as a flight attendant, Ann Hood dreamt of a second career as a writer, and she covers that as well in this book. Fly Girl is always interesting, a well-written account of changes in an industry, and changes in the author herself. As a story of an industry and a career, it may stay relevant after some of the celebrity memoirs fall by the wayside.

Ann Hood’s website is https://www.annhood.us/

Fly Girl by Ann Hood. W.W. Norton & Company, 2022. ISBN 9781324006237 (hardcover), p. 269.

*****

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