Customer Reviews

Birthright

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As one who has been interested in the kidnapping of Chas Lindbergh since a child, I found this book to be very interesting. The author takes historical facts and turns them into a magnificent work of fiction.

The downside to the book is that it ends without giving the full reaction to the ending. Although the book skips around from personas, toward the end, it skips too much to give the full perspective of anyone.

Due to some sexual content, I do not recommend this book to those under the age of thirteen.

In 1932, Helen Shellenbach's grip on reality is very loose, to say the least. When Helen accidentally kills her infant child, her desperate husband, Shell, quickly realizes that he needs a replacement to assuage his spouses grief and guilt before she suffers a nervous breakdown. Like any loyal husband, he goes out and kidnaps a baby, who happens to be the son of Charles and Ann Lindbergh. The Shellenbachs raise the lad as if he were their own child, calling him David. A few years later, Helen completes her spin into insanity and is committed. When David turns thirteen, Helen recommends that Shell return David to the Lindberghs, an act he refuses because the child is now a part of him.

More years pass and by the nineteen seventies David is running for governor of Massachusetts. His father is dying of cancer and decides the time to tell him the truth has arrived. He informs David who his biological parents truly are. His biological father is dead, but his birth mother and natural siblings still live. Once he recovers from the denial stage, David has several difficult decisions to make that will effect the lives of himself and those close to him.

BIRTHRIGHT is an interesting story line based on a twist to the Lindbergh kidnapping case. Shell is a fabulous character struggling to survive his one error in life by doing the best he can for David. The relationship between David and Shell (before and after the revelation) is also brilliantly drawn. Andrew Coburn brings a unique freshness to the historical fiction genre with this compelling story.

Harriet Klausner

This was a wonderful book to read. I could NOT put it down. The characters were so full of life. They could have been people you knew, members of your family and even a little of yourself could be recognized in them. I didn't feel that the book ever lagged in any spot and it grabbed you from the first sentance. I don't want to give anything about the book away because, if you choose to read it, you should have the full enjoyment and all the wonderment that comes with it. In my opinion, though, it was very well written with just the right amount of detail, not so much that you get bored and enough to picture every scene. The story was beautiful; full of human nature. Andrew Coburn makes his characters real and easily identifiable. I will definately be looking for other books written by this author.

This is a well written novel, based on an extremely fascinating idea. It is not a mystery or thriller however, but a series of character sketches ranging over most of the 20th century. With few exceptions its protagonists are sad and joyless and haunted by their pasts. Yet, for the most part, they move through their lives courageously, like Anne Morrow Lindbergh, finding support and love from unlikely sources.

In 1932, Helen Shellenbach's grip on reality is very loose, to say the least. When Helen accidentally kills her infant child, her desperate husband, Shell, quickly realizes that he needs a replacement to assuage his spouses grief and guilt before she suffers a nervous breakdown. Like any loyal husband, he goes out and kidnaps a baby, who happens to be the son of Charles and Ann Lindbergh. The Shellenbachs raise the lad as if he were their own child, calling him David. A few years later, Helen completes her spin into insanity and is committed. When David turns thirteen, Helen recommends that Shell return David to the Lindberghs, an act he refuses because the child is now a part of him.

More years pass and by the nineteen seventies David is running for governor of Massachusetts. His father is dying of cancer and decides the time to tell him the truth has arrived. He informs David who his biological parents truly are. His biological father is dead, but his birth mother and natural siblings still live. Once he recovers from the denial stage, David has several difficult decisions to make that will effect the lives of himself and those close to him.

BIRTHRIGHT is an interesting story line based on a twist to the Lindbergh kidnapping case. Shell is a fabulous character struggling to survive his one error in life by doing the best he can for David. The relationship between David and Shell (before and after the revelation) is also brilliantly drawn. Andrew Coburn brings a unique freshness to the historical fiction genre with this compelling story.

Harriet Klausner

In 1932, Helen Shellenbach's grip on reality is very loose, to say the least. When Helen accidentally kills her infant child, her desperate husband, Shell, quickly realizes that he needs a replacement to assuage his spouses grief and guilt before she suffers a nervous breakdown. Like any loyal husband, he goes out and kidnaps a baby, who happens to be the son of Charles and Ann Lindbergh. The Shellenbachs raise the lad as if he were their own child, calling him David. A few years later, Helen completes her spin into insanity and is committed. When David turns thirteen, Helen recommends that Shell return David to the Lindberghs, an act he refuses because the child is now a part of him.

More years pass and by the nineteen seventies David is running for governor of Massachusetts. His father is dying of cancer and decides the time to tell him the truth has arrived. He informs David who his biological parents truly are. His biological father is dead, but his birth mother and natural siblings still live. Once he recovers from the denial stage, David has several difficult decisions to make that will effect the lives of himself and those close to him.

BIRTHRIGHT is an interesting story line based on a twist to the Lindbergh kidnapping case. Shell is a fabulous character struggling to survive his one error in life by doing the best he can for David. The relationship between David and Shell (before and after the revelation) is also brilliantly drawn. Andrew Coburn brings a unique freshness to the historical fiction genre with this compelling story.

Harriet Klausner

I've never read anything by this author before now, so it may be his style, but I was distracted by all the sexual descriptions. It got pretty predictable after a while. Just about everybody but the Lindberghs is depicted this way. I've been interested in the Lindbergh case since 1971. Before she died, I was able to visit Anna Hauptmann in her home. What a delightful lady! I don't claim to have all the answers to this mystery, but I appreciate reading serious scholarship as well as a novel like Coburn's. I still think "Scapegoat" by Anthony Scaduto is brilliant. I could read it again!

Run, don't walk, and buy every book this man wrote. He knows how to use the English language: outstanding descriptions and dialogs. Can't rave enough!

This book is almost entirely fiction and not the best of fiction novels. I did not enjoy the book, the way it jumped from time periods back and forth telling the various stories was confusing. You needed a list just to keep up with who all the players were. The blatant sexuality that is brought into the characters is in my opinion embarrassing, voyeuristic and not needed. The most interesting part comes at the very end when you think that after all the years Anne is really going to get to know that her Charlie lived and the man he became. Alas, that is where the novel ends, and it is up to your imaginations as to what happens.

Coburn's Birthright takes you by storm. His language is poetry; his metaphors music. The power of love, anguish, fraility, self-preservation,and death resound in the music of this sonata--note by note.

Hear the tainted timbre of Helen's maternal voice; the rasp on consumption in Rudy's. We want to wipe Shell's desperation from our sweaty palms. We know Father Henry's meancholy as he views with awe a rush of river that he knows will continue to flow, though he won't. And we feel the rod of Mrs. Dodd's spine straighten with cold resolve.

Coburn's words breathe; the metaphors emote. Don't miss it. And beg Coburn for more.