SOURCE: "Taking Wing," in Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1996, p. E5.

[In the following review, Rourke discusses the evolution of Mendelsohn's I Was Amelia Earhart.]

You can tell you're in someone else's fantasy just by reading the title, I Was Amelia Earhart. You might even wonder if the author, Jane Mendelsohn, still answers to her real name.

Such odd concerns have only helped attract more readers to her brief, poetic novel. Within weeks of the book's … publication, there were paperback and movie deals, a rushed second printing and high visibility on the bestseller lists.

"I don't feel like I was ever Amelia Earhart. But once I'd gone through her journey by writing about it, I thought the title was something she might write," says Mendelsohn, a 30-year-old New Yorker who is married to filmmaker Nick Davis.

She uses the title to introduce an imaginary story of how circumstances changed...