Under a Wing: A Memoir [Paperback]

Reeve Lindbergh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 1999

"We Lindberghs still know ourselves best as a tribe: close-knit, self-enclosed, and self-defining, always prepared to be besieged by invisible forces upwelling from the past...."

The world knew Charles Lindbergh as a daring aviator, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and controversial isolationist in World War II.  His wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was a bestselling author.  To their five children they were Father, never Daddy, and Mother.  Charles, a stern yet loving father, was surprisingly affectionate and playful; Anne provided a great, gentling love.  With remarkable candor, their youngest daughter provides a rare, intimate look at her legendary family...the pervasive impact of her brother's kidnapping and death...the complexity of her parents' long, loving marriage...the night her life and her mother's converged, as Reeve's own infant son died suddenly.  With grace and insight, Reeve Lindbergh appraises her remarkable parents, her unusual childhood, and the troubling questions that remain.  At once an eloquent reminiscence and a slice of American history, Under a Wing is, at its core, a heartfelt tribute to an extraordinary family.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Reeve Lindbergh's memoir offers a uniquely intimate portrait of her family led by her intensely private father, aviator Charles Lindbergh, and mother, writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Under a Wing captures both her parents' complex personalities with immediacy and intimacy. Reeve explores the contrast between a loving father who "would parade imaginary animals across our backs" and the exacting patriarch who, upon return from his frequent absences, called each of his five children into his office to peruse a handwritten list of their achievements and failures. She seems anguished in her response to one of Charles's notorious, bigoted speeches: "How could someone who spoke the words my father did in 1941," she asks, "how did such a person then raise children who by his instruction and his example, day after day and year after year, had learned from him ... that such words were repellent and unspeakable?" She offers too a blunt but tender portrait of Anne in old age--she has been physically and mentally impaired by a series of stroke--that proves she has a mature understanding of a deeply loving woman who nonetheless always held some part of herself in reserve for her writing. This impressive memoir brings readers close to the private people within two legendary public figures. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Having already written about her family's life after Charles Lindbergh's death in the autobiographical novel The Names of the Mountains, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's youngest has written an evocative reminiscence of her youth in Darien, Conn., with her two famous parents. This gentle memoir shows a unique and uniquely poignant family life: "In our family it has always been hard to know what is right and what is wrong, in terms of what we can do for one another. It has been hard for us, too, to separate individual identity from family identity." The resulting publicity left their family with a fear of exposure. The author's father was always wary of what others could see?a cautiousness that extended to clothes, architecture and even the color of the family car. Although her father was constantly trying to shape and mold his children (no Wonder Bread, marshmallow fluff, grape jelly or candy was allowed at home and lectures and discussions were frequent), his widely perceived anti-Semitism ultimately hurt his family deeply. Anne Morrow Lindbergh emerges from this retrospective as a gentle, even ethereal, intellectual whose style was the polar opposite of her husband's. While the reader might like to know more about Reeve and her own family, instead, we are given an intimate look at other family members and at her parents' marriage. From an idyllic?if somewhat isolated?youth in Darien, to her father's death and her mother's mental deterioration, Reeve has watched and learned and shared with readers what she refers to as the living language of her parents' marriage.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Delta (September 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385334443
• ISBN-13: 978-0385334440
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,307,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolutely charming book!, May 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Under a Wing: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Reeve Lindbergh's memoirs are a must read for anyone who has read the diaries and letters of her mother and father, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Reeve's disclosures on what it was like growing up as a Lindbergh tie all the rest of the books about the family together. The passages concerning the kidnapping of Reeve's brother are haunting, and for the first time, you see this child as someone's brother, not a subject of a newspaper account. The similarity between Reeve Lindbergh's writing style and that of her mother's is striking and quite poignant.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kudos to Reeve, November 25, 1999

By 

John Elkin "Bredbaker" (Vancouver, Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Under a Wing: A Memoir (Paperback)

Somehow you just imagine that children of the famous are well taken care of and have a choice of things to do with their lives. Being a student of the Lindbergh writings and accomplishments for more years than I care to admit; I gave little thought to the children of Charles and Anne. If you read the writings of Charles Lindbergh you get a sense of a life well ordered and possibly ridgid, of a disaplined mind and a man who requires disapline around him. It never gave me cause to think about what kind of father he would be, but I had my suspicions. It was refreshing to read about the good times as well as the bad with her Father. It eases the mind to know that he wasn't a "Daddy-dearest", however he had his quirks. Reeve paints a story about a life before and after losing her father that is rewarding and taxing, just like our own. About loss and gain, but mostly loss. However after losing people close to you, it's hard to not focus on the loss. I finished this book and was emotionally drained, Reeve takes the reader on a roller-coaster emotional ride.. much like her Mother's writings. When all is said and done I had answers to questions I had wondered and learned new things I had not known before. What more could you ask of a book?

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life with,and without father!, August 19, 1999

By 

"masonx" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Under a Wing: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Caught the author Reeve Lindberg on the Oprah show recently when Peter Jennings was her guest.During the brief time she spoke impressed me greatly that I went out and brought the book.It is an intimate detailed biography of growing up with a famous dad who wasnt there most of the time.She only talks little of the kidnapping as she was not born at the time.I liked that for all there fame John and Anne(who is still alive)were determined to give their kids a normal childhood.One of my ten best biographies for the decade.