Review by Morgan Baker
If you were born before September 11, 2001, you remember what happened that day. But everyone’s memory is different.
I remember the swimming-pool-blue sky that looked like you could dive into it. I remember teaching my first class of the semester and how scared the students were, and how we were alerted to evacuate our building. A student asked if he could walk down the stairs with me. I said, yes, of course, thinking I’m not sure what good I’m going to do, but we all needed comfort. Outside, the sidewalk was packed like Q-tips packed together with students on phones, looking up at the sky for an answer.
When I started reading Cleared for Take Off: A Pilot’s Memoir of Purpose and Resilience after 9/11 by Captain Nia Gilliam (Storehouse Press; Aug. 2026), I wasn’t prepared for what was coming, but when I realized what it was, my memory of that day kicked in.
The book begins on 9/11. Gilliam is co-piloting a regional flight from Newark to Boston, waiting for clearance from the tower. What begins as an ordinary day changes as Gilliam watches the second plane hit the second tower. It’s shattering.
Even though I lived through 9/11, Gilliam’s story is so different, and because she is a pilot, the aftermath of that day affected her in a momentous way. She saw people turn what she loved the most in the world—planes and flying—into weapons. I read breathlessly, chapter after chapter, to find out what happened that day and after, and how she survived, as well as how she became a pilot.
Through alternating chapters, Gilliam’s memoir tells two stories. First is the story of her experience during 9/11 and its aftermath. The second story chronicles her journey to achieving her dream of becoming a Black female pilot. Dreams, however, can sometimes turn into nightmares. Gilliam’s initial goal was to become an astronaut. When it looked like that might not happen, she pivoted. There were many turns and twists along the way that tried to stop Gilliam. She was, and is, a smart, determined woman. Her story made me proud to also be a woman trying to make the way easier for the women, like my daughters, behind me.
To give you an idea of the kind of challenge ahead of her, female pilots make up 7 percent of professional pilots. However, there are fewer than 150 Black professional women pilots in the US—less than 1 percent of all professional pilots.
Some of the most moving sections of Gilliam’s story are when she meets her first Black female pilot, Stayce Harris, who remains part of her life, celebrating Gilliam’s achievements. Years later, a young Black female pilot named Angela Jean-Charles tells Gilliam how great it is to see her, to feel less alone, and represented. Gilliam becomes a mentor to others who look like her, using power, compassion, and care to build relationships.
She and Jean-Charles took the idea of mentorship one step further: In 2016, they founded Sisters of the Sky to support Black female pilots. The organization provides mentorship, professional development, and even flight training scholarships.
Without giving away too much, the story continues to unfold in unexpected ways. Gilliam, like many of us, plans one thing and then something comes along that derails us. Sometimes the change in direction is good, and, sometimes, we need to find our way home. Gilliam is a role model in resilience, and her story will encourage you to strive towards your dreams.
Gilliam’s writing is engaging, vulnerable, and honest. While her lived experience is different from mine, her story – the challenges and triumphs – and how she reacted to those felt similar to ones I’ve experienced, which is the mark of a good memoir – where the specific becomes the universal.
Morgan Baker writes about reinventing yourself, learning how to handle loss, and emerging from depression in her award-winning memoir Emptying the Nest: Getting Better at Good-byes (Ten16 Press). Other work can be found in the Boston Globe Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, The Martha’s Vineyard Times, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Grown & Flown, Motherwell and the Brevity Blog, among others. She teaches at Emerson College and is managing editor of The Bucket. She is the mother of two adult daughters and lives with her husband and two Portuguese water dogs in Cambridge, Mass. She is an avid quilter and baker.
