Based on the real events of the 1949 Air France Lockheed Constellation F-BAZN plane crash, Constellation is an imagined account of the backstories of 48 passengers on board.
Winner of the prestigious Academie Francaise Prize, Adrien Bosc manages to turn a tragedy into a miracle in this deeply insightful, thought-provoking novel.
Passengers included boxer and Edith Piaf’s lover Marcel Cerdan, and French violinist Ginette Neveu. Bosc weaves in and out of the various narratives while alternating strands of the flight from Paris to New York, search and repatriation.
The passengers’ biographies add a beautiful human touch to the story, however it was slightly confusing and hard to distinguish which parts were fact and which were Bosc’s imagination.
Despite this crossover, Constellation is an interesting read and worth devoting some time to. The story is clearly very well researched and both a historical investigation and a touching tribute to those lives lost on that fateful day.
