Under a Wing: A Memoir - Softcover

Lindbergh, Reeve

3.7

811 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753196255 ISBN 13: 9780753196250

Publisher: Isis Large Print Books, 2000

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"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.

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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.

From the Back Cover:

"A wonderful family memoir."
-- The New York Times Book Review

"A poignant and superbly written memoir...A story of fascinating contradictions."
-- Chicago Tribune

"Touching...[an] often wry and compelling mosaic of life with father."
-- The Washington Post

"Marvelous, moving...An insider's look at the Lindberghs' private lives...this is a daughter's-eye view: gentle, candid and illustrated with intimate everyday details."
-- USA Today

A New York Times Notable Book and an Alternate Selection of the Literary Guild and the Doubleday Book Club

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