Then Anne, a college senior with hidden literary aspirations, travels to Mexico City to spend Christmas with her family. ambassador to Mexico, has stood in the shadows of those around her, including her millionaire father and vibrant older sister, who often steals the spotlight. Yet, that very body of writing can sometimes make this additional book feel almost beside the point.For much of her life, Anne Morrow, the shy daughter of the U.S. The novel benefits from what the Lindberghs themselves have written about their lives, in diaries and essays. In the end, there was no one to trust but herself. That is what the novel is about, as the narrator learns to honor her own choices. He was, after all, still her hero.Īnne’s fictional dying mother told her she had no need for a hero that she must be strong on her own. Benjamin is good at conveying how Anne feels a need to follow her husband, even when she strongly suspects he is wrong. Impressed by Germany’s air power and Aryan purity, Lindbergh risks his reputation, urging that the United States stay out of the war.

He admires Germany, and for a time takes the family there to live, away from the prying press. Charles spends less and less time at home. Anne, who won literary prizes in college, goes on to write books. In the years that follow, the Lindberghs have five more children. By now a skilled pilot, she had numerous adventures with him mapping new routes, and in 1930 had become the first female licensed as a glider pilot. Flying, after all, is what Lindberghs do, and she has become his crew. After they have their first baby, Charles insists that she leave the little boy at home with a nurse and go off on missions with him. He teaches her to fly, tells her what to cook for breakfast, and chooses where they will live. Throughout most of the novel, she subordinates herself to Charles, her controlling, arrogant husband - her hero and everyone else’s. Despite her intellect and education, Anne is looking for a man to take care of her. If this sounds to you like an introduction to feminist issues, know that it is. “Hadn’t I always wanted to be carried away by someone stronger than me? As much as I had told myself that life was no fairy tale, I had always hoped, deep down, that it was.” Like other young women of her era, Anne Morrow had been waiting for her prince to come. “I wasn’t frightened,” the fictional Anne confides.

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin