''Fate Is the Hunter'' is a 1961

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

by aviation writer Ernest K. Gann. It describes his years working as a pilot from the 1930s to 1950s, starting at

American Airlines American Airlines, Inc. is a major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the ...

in Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s when civilian air transport was in its infancy, moving onto wartime flying in C-54s, C-87s, and

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s, and finally at Matson Navigation's short-lived upstart airline and various post-World War II "nonscheduled" airlines in

Douglas DC-4 The Douglas DC-4 is an American four-engined (piston), propeller-driven airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Military versions of the plane, the C-54 and R5D, served during World War II, in the Berlin Airlift and into the 1960 ...

s. On its publication, in reviewing the book,

Martin Caidin Martin Caidin (September 14, 1927 – March 24, 1997) was an American author, screenwriter, and an authority on aeronautics and aviation. Caidin began writing fiction in 1957. In his career he authored more than 50 fiction and nonfiction books ...

wrote that Gann's reminiscences "stand excitingly as individual chapter-stories, but the author has woven them superbly into a lifetime of flight." Roger Bilstein, in a history of flight, says that of books that discuss airline operations from the pilot's point of view, "few works of this genre equal E. K. Gann's 'Fate Is the Hunter,' which strikingly evokes the atmosphere of air transport flying during the 1930s." In 2019, playwright

David Mamet David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, author, and filmmaker. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony Award, Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and ''Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first ...

, a pilot himself, wrote that ''Fate Is the Hunter'' is "the best book written about aviation". The plot of the 1964 film ''Fate Is the Hunter'' had no relation to the book. Gann had written some early drafts of the script, but was so unhappy with the final result that he asked to have his name removed from it. In his autobiography, ''A Hostage to Fortune'', Gann wrote, "They obliged and as a result I deprived myself of the TV residuals, a medium in which the film played interminably."Gann 1978, p. 457. The plot of Gann's fictional book '' The High and the Mighty'' bears some resemblance to one of the true stories in ''Fate Is the Hunter''. On a flight from Hawaii to Burbank, California, the stewardess complained of a vibration that was rattling the dishes and silverware at the rear of the plane. Gann inspected the tail compartment and noticed nothing amiss. The vibration was later traced to a missing elevator hinge bolt, which could have led to aerodynamic unporting and a loss of control. However, Gann was eager to begin his vacation the next day and flew at a higher than expected airspeed, holding the elevator in place. Another fictional book by Gann, '' Island in the Sky'', is also based on a true story told in ''Fate Is the Hunter''. The book was also made into a movie of the same name.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Bilstein, Roger E. ''Flight in America''. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. . * Gann, Ernest K. ''A Hostage to Fortune: An Autobiography.'' Dayton, Ohio: B.D. King Press, 1978. . {{Refend 1961 non-fiction books Aviation books American memoirs American works adapted into films Memoirs adapted into films