Stone Age Astronaut

A soaring adventure, a riveting biography, and a reclamation of a great American story lost to history.

In Stone Age Astronaut, award-winning author Liam Callanan uncovers the astonishing life of Lester Maitland—the Milwaukee-born aviator who, in 1927, became the first person to fly to Hawaii, earning national acclaim on par with Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic triumph. For a brief moment, the two men shared headlines, White House invitations, and fame. But while Lindbergh’s legacy grew, Maitland’s all but vanished.

Callanan brings Maitland back into the spotlight, tracing his meteoric early career: flight instructor at nineteen; one of the US Army’s first test pilots; the first American to fly faster than 200 mph; and the pioneering airman whose Pacific crossing earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Stone Age Astronaut hums with the tension and excitement of early aviation, rendered in a richly detailed narrative and Callanan’s research—spanning archives, newspapers, interviews, and travel to key sites—to reveal the remarkable sweep of Lester Maitland’s world. Along the way, listeners encounter a constellation of notable figures: Amelia Earhart, Billy Mitchell, Ernest Hemingway, Gerald Ford, Richard Bong, the Dole Pineapple King, Harry Houdini, and even a Skull and Bones–affiliated aviation official.

With sparkling prose and a storyteller’s instinct for detail, Callanan resurrects a man whose life intersected with major events, eras, and personalities—but who has inexplicably slipped through the cracks of American memory. A gripping portrait of ambition, innovation, fame, failure, and reinvention—and the enduring human urge to fly—Stone Age Astronaut ensures that Lester Maitland’s extraordinary story will no longer be forgotten.