Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life - Softcover

Susan Hertog managed to obtain 10 separate interviews with her very private subject (though not access to Anne Morrow Lindbergh's unpublished papers), and her personal involvement shows in every line of this impassioned biography. Hertog's searching account of the Lindbergh marriage explores the complex union of two people who loved each other deeply yet were emotionally ill-suited. Charles "saw the rebel heart inside the timid girl" and liberated a confined daughter of privilege into a world of adventure, but "[the] price she paid for her Prince" was high, including painful loneliness during his frequent absences and, most agonizingly, the 1932 death of their baby son. Though he was killed by kidnappers, in the Lindberghs' view he was equally a victim of the relentless publicity surrounding them. As the couple withdrew to protect their other children, Anne experienced a sense of isolation, but she was also liberated to explore her inner life and to delineate it in her writing--which was always supported by Charles. Hertog, who read Gift from the Sea (1955) as a new mother without knowing anything about its author, enthusiastically assesses that bestseller and other books in which Anne asserted that "a woman must come of age by herself," reminding readers that Anne Morrow Lindbergh is not the wife of a famous aviator, but a source of inspiration in her own right. --Wendy Smith

"[This biography] is confident, graceful and shrewd. It finds the flesh-and-bones woman at the center." --The Plain Dealer

"The author's deep research and ability to decipher the code beneath the veneer of Anne's books and diaries allow the reader insight into a woman who paid dearly for a remarkable adventure." --Chicago Sun-Times

"Lots of books are called definitive biographies, but this actually is one. . . . As writing acts go, this one is heroic." --David Gelernter, Commentary

"A detailed and comprehensive portrait of the writer, the aviatrix and the loyal yet in some ways disappointed wife. . . . Anne Lindbergh's story proves to be well worth telling." --The Wall Street Journal

"A wonderful book, truly worthy of its subject."--Peggy Noonan

"Poignant, haunting, and lyrical."--Ron Chernow