Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of addiction and gender discrimination.

“Time and again, I unearthed a telling incident or charming anecdote only to learn that it wasn’t true. Frustrating? You bet. But it was also enlightening, a reminder that it is often difficult to find the history in the hype, to separate truth from myth.”

This quote sets the tone for how Amelia Lost approaches Earhart’s story. Fleming frames Earhart’s biography as a puzzle where fact and fiction are tangled together. That uncertainty creates a larger question that the book keeps circling back to: Is it even possible to know who Earhart really was when so many of the stories told about her were polished, exaggerated, or invented? Fleming’s honesty about this process aims to make the reader aware, right from the start, that this biography will attempt to question, investigate, and sift through conflicting versions of events. This is the book’s purpose beyond recounting Earhart’s life.

“But obviously she could see neither Howland nor the ship with its billowing smoke. This could mean only one thing—Amelia Earhart was lost.”

The word “lost” works in two ways here. First, it describes Earhart’s physical situation. She could not find her way to Howland Island, which meant that she was lost in the most practical sense. At the same time, “lost” also means that others could not find her. Both meanings of “lost” leave the same outcome: No one could save her.

“‘Ladies don’t climb fences,’ admonished Grandmother Otis. ‘Only boys do that. Little girls use the gate.’

Amelia was puzzled. She felt sure that if she had been a boy, her grandmother would have thought the shortcut ‘entirely natural.’”

This passage illustrates the Rejection of Traditional Gender Roles. From an early age, Earhart had a tendency to challenge gender norms. Grandmother Otis’s comment reflects the strict expectations placed on girls, dictating how they should behave and even how they should move through the world.