Customer Reviews

Anne Morrow Lindbergh : Her Life

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book is a wonderful reminder of just how remarkable a woman the long-suffering Anne Morrow Lindbergh was in her own right, and of the difficult time she had emerging from the extremely dark shadows of husband Charles Lindbergh life of accomplishment, aggravation, and pathetic self-absorption. In this literate and quite readable biography by Susan Hertog, a portrait of this singular woman comes soaring to the heights despite of life of incredible personal hardship and sorrow. It is also a sad reminder that into each life rain must fall, regardless of how affluent, famous, or privileged.

It is a common place by this point in our history that Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a victim of colossal proportions, not only in terms of the controversial and shocking kidnapping and death of her infant son in the early 1930s, but also by her domination for decades by "Lucky Lindy", and she was trapped by convention and circumstance into an incredibly difficult life with this brilliant but strangely detached human being she was married to. From the moment they met her life was destined to trail in the shadow of his, both by virtue of tradition and her own desire to have a predominantly private life. Yet, curiously, she ironically married the man most singularly unable to give her all that she wanted and needed. Their life together is a somber and complicated modern American tragedy on the scale of "Death of a Salesman".

Yet Anne Morrow Lindbergh rose above her situation and their personal life of tragedy and disappointment. Lindbergh was a peripatetic traveler, and while she often accompanied him (indeed, he insisted in order to keep her primary focus exclusively on him rather than on their children or anything else), in their later years they came to live increasingly more separate and distinct lives, even while together. To say Lindbergh was a bizarre man and a strange soul is to be kind to a man described in pitiless terms by his widow herself and his adult child. It is easy for younger readers ignorant of how difficult and scandalous divorce or separation would have been for her, it may seem difficult to understand why she stayed with him despite his cruelty, indifference, and prejudices all those years. But for older readers more familiar with the older and more common character virtues people of Mrs. Lindbergh's generation, social background, and time subscribed to, it is a tragic set of circumstances that only she can understand in all its tragic overtones.

This is a close up portrait of a woman tragically trapped by fame, marriage, and social convention into a life of limitless advantages but cruelly wasted opportunities. That she was as successful as an author, humanitarian, social activist and early feminist later in her life is a tribute to a remarkable woman, and yet a bittersweet reminder of how much more she might have been had she never met her future husband. This is a interesting, well written, and captivating study of a woman and her times, and is one I recommend to people interested in a most fascinating yet offbeat biography. Enjoy!

With three pilots in my family, it was hard not to know the story of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. I read Anne's incredible Gift from the Sea when I was fifteen years old, and since then-becoming a flyer, wife, mother and writer myself-I've gobbled up every book and article available. None has captured the essence of this daring, captivating woman the way Susan Hertog's biography has. The author's empathy for her subject put me in the cockpit with Lindy during their first flight together and held me in Anne's seat through the romance, tragedy, struggle and catharsis that followed. When Anne finally accomplishes Gift from the Sea, every experience up to that moment makes sense. It is utterly inspirational. But Hertog somehow holds on to scholarship, and goes on to examine a life fraught with controversy. Enough authors have skirted the issue or apologized for the Lindberghs' unconscionable endorsement of WWII appeasement and pro-Nazi sentiments. Susan Hertog seems to be the first biographer to speak freely and cogently on the most delicate issues. For that reason, this thorough, level-headed study demonstrates the highest end of what an independent, "unauthorized" biography can accomplish. Her voluminous research (including a family tree that must have dazzled even the family) is a sturdy foundation for her wonderful, lively prose. It is overwhelming to digest such a remarkable life in just a few days. Susan Hertog does not make it easy, or simple, but she does make it immensely satisfying.

I have read all of AML's books, as well as the recent biographies by F. Scott Berg, Joyce Milton, Dorothy Hermann, and Reeve Lindbergh. Susan Hertog was able to uncover subtleties in AML's character that the other authors missed. She rightly praises AML's gifted, lyrical method of writing, but also very gently exposes her life-long "victim complex" that would have been healthy for a certain amount of time after the kidnapping, but unfortunately lasted for the rest of her life. The best example is a quote by her friend Ernestine Stodelle on page 426.

Susan Hertog's book is the best and most comprehensive analysis of AML that I have read so far. She was also able to print a few photos that were not in any of the previous books, showing AML to be a great beauty throughout her life, particularly directly after her marriage. While Scott Berg's captured the essence of Charles Lindbergh, I think he felt so loyal to AML because she was the one who granted him access to all of the Lindbergh papers, so his portrait of her was through rose colored glasses.

Susan Hertog has done neither a hatchet job nor puff piece. She truly understands this complex woman and after being an admirer of AML for many years I finally had a sense of satisfaction that I really understood her after reading this book.

This is a fascinating book,lyrically written and superbly researched. It develops a picture of a woman, a survivor, coming to grips with the complexities of the 20th century. It made me question how I would view myself as wife, mother and career woman and when tempted at times to view Anne less then sympathetically,I was jolted back to the realites of her world and ended up amazed at her accomplishments.This is a thoughtful, provocative read which I will avidly reccommend to my book club.

Susan Hertog takes full advantage of ten audiences with her subject, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She manages to capture the complexities of Mrs. Lindbergh's character and the contradictions of her marriage to an American icon, Charles Lindbergh. The fact that the Lindbergh family has largely disavowed the book doesn't detract from Ms. Hertog's insights.

Unfortunately, the lengthy book, published almost 20 years after Charles Lindbergh died in 1974, virtually ends with his death...when Anne Morrow Lindbergh was 68 years old (she lived on until 2002). Almost nothing of Mrs. Lindbergh's life in widowhood is mentioned, which gives the unintended impression that in the final analysis, she was simply Charles Lindbergh's wife, not an accomplished woman deserving of her own biography.

In fact, the middle-aged Anne Morrow Lindbergh became a role model for working women, albeit she was always too self-effacing to occupy a leadership position in the gender wars.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh was and still is a remarkable woman. This is the third book I have recently read that she was a major part of; firstly it was A. Scott Berg's Pulitzer Prize Winning "Lindbergh", next was "Under A Wing" by the youngest of the Lindbergh children Reeve Lindbergh, and now this volume by Susan Hertog. While unique understandings of parts of this book may be interpreted differently by a woman than a man, you do not have to be female to read this book. Being a Parent is not required nor is being married. Any combination of these may bring a different perspective, but none would be definitive. Anne Morrow Lindbergh is amazing for all her accomplishments as a writer, a pilot, a Mother, and the list goes on. She also is amazing for having had the ability to spend a life with Charles Lindbergh, or having only one relationship with another man. Lindbergh's first crossing of the Atlantic was lucky timing. There were literally other pilots from France that were lost en route as he was preparing to leave. Had he never attempted the flight, and the accomplishment had gone to another man/woman, Anne Morrow may or may not have married, but after reading these books I believe she would have been a great deal happier as would her children. She arguably could have achieved all she did and more. When a Daughter says that when her Father was away she and the Family felt "relief", doesn't say much for the man. When the same word is used to describe her feelings at his death, what kind of "Father" are we talking about? Question the quote? read the book by Reeve Lindbergh. A Wife who states that had he not made the first flight he would probably have "pumped gas at an airport", hardly had stars in her eyes all her life. As Susan Hertog describes in this book, visitors to the Lindbergh's home in England characterized Lindbergh's method of Fathering as "a certain sort of sadism". His first Son was kidnapped. Good Old Looser Lindy constructed an enclosure for the 18 month old, and directed he be placed in it, during the winter, and forbid that he be helped or attended to so he could "fend for himself". A little early for survivalist training? Does not everyone put their next son in a pen with a "butting Ram" and let him learn to defend himself? These digressions are needed to show that in spite of, and not because of, "The Hero Lindbergh" Anne Morrow Lindbergh not only survived him, but also managed to flourish despite him. Charles was a man of science, you bet! As long as he was with his racist buddy Alexis Carrel, creating what the press termed "modern Frankensteins" on their island. Carrel was thrown out of The Rockefeller institute because he was a Doctor only a Nazi could love. I believe the authoress did a good job, but there were inconsistencies with police photographs regarding the trial (the plank of wood in reference to the ladder, Susan Hertog claimed matched "perfectly", was the wrong length and thickness) that tend to undermine what I am confident is a 95% accurate book. There is a huge difference between "pardoning" a convicted murderer, and "commuting" a death sentence to life in prison in exchange for an admission of guilt. Hauptman would not admit his guilt to save his life, only he knows why. The authoress either has information other writers did not have or was careless with her words. There is no footnote for the statement in the book. Mrs. Lindbergh dealt with this man who was an anti-Semite to everyone who was not a member of "America First", it was she who pronounced his award from Hitler "an Albatross", while he was clueless as to the fool's role he was playing, and she had long periods of self doubt and self worth because of how she measured up to him? Lindbergh the "Hero" is narrow to be kind, and blatant revisionist history if accurately described. Anne Morrow was her Father and Mother's Daughter, and had all that was necessary to be her own success. We will never know how great, as she had the misfortune to marry, and the loyalty to stay with this severely flawed, morally impaired individual. There should be a statue to her, in the place of his.

I just finished this book. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was an amazing and inspiring lady and this book gives the reader a detailed account of her life. My tastes in reading material usually are geared more towards contemporary fiction but I picked up this book on a recomendation from a friend. And if you are like me, you probably have a stack of books on your bedside table that you are systematically reading. Well, Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life, came to the top of that pile and dutifully I started reading. I was so pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this book (seeing as how the 'biography' has not been my first choice in reading material). The content (AML's life) is just so interesting that it is better then most of the fiction I have read as of late. Anne Morrow Lindbergh is just such a remarkable lady and the author has gone to great length to "know" her subject. You will find the depth of the research Ms. Hertog did on AML to be nothing short of phenomanal. The chapters on the Lindbergh Baby kidknapping literally took my breath away and kept me up until three o'clock in the morning. The writing was that fresh and intense, I felt as if I was experiencing it all first hand.

I write this review a day after the New York Times reviewed Anne Morrow Lindbergh and I have to wonder if the Times reviewer is married or has children. It's possible that a reader needs that kind of insight to adequately review a story that is not simply about a celebrity wife and famous author in her own right, but about a woman who struggled for such a long time with her duties as a wife and mother and her desires as a woman and writer. This book is more than biography - i think it becomes clear that the author is sympathetic, as I was, to Anne Morrow Lindbergh's plight. Once you have children, everything changes. Responsibility, guilt about leaving your children, fear that you will lose yourself if you devote all your time to them and none to yourself - where is the balance? And no matter how much men try to change, they seem, over the generations, to stay much the same. There is the dilemma, so interestingly and exhaustively explored in this wonderfully researched work.

By reading the notes in the back of the book, it's obvious that Susan Hertog painstakingly researched her subject, and presented her story sincerely. Unfortunately, Ms. Hertog was unable to craft a narrative that carries the reader through Anne Morrow Lindbergh's life.

The book lacks narrative--it's more of a dreamy account of significant events in Mrs. Lindbergh's life. There are lots of gaps; lots of unanswered questions. And throughout, Ms. Hertog tries to make the reader sympathetic to Mrs. Lindbergh's fate. In the end, I tired of reading about the poor little rich girl who married a hero and couldn't enjoy the wonderful life given her.

While reading Susan Hertog's, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Her Life, I often found myself asking the question, "Is this the real story? Was America's hero truly this flawed?" I decided to seek answers to my questions by looking for reviews of this work on amazon.com. Hertog admits she had no access to AML's unpublished papers which given the fact that the two were working closely together seems odd. On 12/28/99, "A reader from Spokane" wrote, "I feel sad this author never had access to AML's diaries and papers..." and then condemns Hertog's work. What access could "A reader" have that Ms. Hertog didn't have? I would also like to know if any of the Lindbergh children have ever given their thoughts on Ms. Hertog's understanding of their parents. Does anyone know?