Under a wing : a memoir /

Novelist Lindbergh veers away from fiction to embrace the memoir form in an intimate, revelatory reminiscence of growing up in the household of her exceptional parents. With great fondness and the mature perspective of a woman in her early fifties, the youngest child of aviator and American hero Charles Lindbergh and beloved writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh tellingly reflects on the foibles, as well as the strength of character of those two well-known figures. The resulting, lovingly rendered diorama is inhabited by a full cast of relatives from both sides of the family and permeated by the powerful legacies of her parents' marriage. Depicting more present-day realities, Lindbergh writes about her aging mother's mental deterioration, a sister's death from cancer, and her own loss of a son in heartfelt recollections that permit readers to enter the private world of a very famous family. (Reviewed October 1, 1998)068480770XAlice Joyce

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. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

This memoir by the youngest child of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh provides a rare look into the lives of a closely guarded famous family. Reeve Lindbergh, an author of young adult fiction, relates how she gradually came to realize that her parents were famous and how the events that made them famous affected all of their lives. Without sugar-coating her parents, especially her father, whose domineering personality was a source of almost constant frustration, she poignantly reminisces about how she could never live up to his expectations, how her parents handled the murder of their first son, and how she herself coped with the loss of a sister to cancer, her own son's death, and her mother's decline. A forthright and moving memoir; recommended for all libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/98.]ÄRonald Ray Ratliff, Chapman H.S. Lib., KS (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

YA-This beautifully written memoir allows readers to see the author's family as she knows them. She offers vivid descriptions of events, whether they be a flying lesson with her father, Charles Lindbergh, or the pain of watching the deteriorating health of her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The author speaks about the circumstances of her eldest brother's kidnapping and death as a baby and how that tragedy forever affected her parents and their interactions with their other children. Readers also meet other relatives, including maternal and paternal grandparents and cousins, and see what roles they played in the family's lives. Lindbergh shows that her family's relationships have not always been easy but they have been close and deep. She doesn't shy away from the truth and yet she manages to be honest without being hurtful. A truly wonderful portrait of a famous family.-Peggy Bercher, Fairfax County Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Published at almost the same time as A Scott BergŽs materful biography of Lindbergh, a sweetly moving memoir of growing up as the daughter of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The novelist (The Names of the Mountains, 1992, etc.) is the youngest of five Lindbergh children, all born after the tragic kidnapping of the famous couple's first-born son. Few knew the Lindberghs had such a large family, and that was how the family wanted to keep it. To escape publicity, they moved frequently, finally settling in an old stone house in Connecticut, where Reeve grew up after WWII. Her father traveled habitually, consulting for government and industry, but was a devotedŽif domineeringŽparent when home, exercising ``affection and discipline in equal measure, often at the same time.'' Her mother was a quieter, less controlling presence; she wished to ``heal, soothe, and uplift us.'' Although Reeve learned little of her kidnapped brother, eventually she too lost a son when he was not yet two years old. Her mother sat with her by the little boy's body, and together they mourned the lost babies. After Charles Lindbergh died nearly 25 years ago, Reeve sought him out again in his boyhood home in Little Falls, Minn., now a state park site. She reflected there on how to reconcile public and private images of famous parents, as well as on the man who taught his children that intolerance was ``repellent and unspeakable''Žyet who himself wrote and uttered anti-Semitic statements. Anne Lindbergh, now in her 90s, suffering from the aftereffects of stroke, often doesn't recognize her daughter. Reeve writes about her mother's illness with sorrow, anger, humor, and acceptance. She also remembers her grandmothers, her siblingsŽespecially her sister, who died of cancer five years agoŽand pleasant summers in Maine. An eloquent recollection of a happy childhood in a tightly knit family whose parents' celebrity complicated but did not contort their lives.