Anne Morrow Lindbergh

November 29, 1999
"My life began when I met Charles Lindbergh," wrote Anne Morrow Lindbergh. As a reserved Smith College junior who harbored the ambition to become a writer, she met her future husband in 1927, soon after he became the first pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic. Raised in a privileged yet conventional environment as the daughter of Dwight Morrow, the American ambassador to Mexico, Anne embarked on a life of adventure with Lindbergh, although she soon recognized the difficulty of reconciling her literary ambitions with accompanying her husband as copilot, navigator and radio operator. After the tragic kidnapping and death of their first child, which they blamed in part on dogged press coverage of their personal life, the Lindberghs moved abroad. They became embroiled with the leaders of Nazi Germany, according to Hertog, because Charles believed that the democratic system was weak and ineffectual, as evidenced by the unbridled freedom of the press. Hertog contends that, although she was not as convinced as her husband of the integrity of the Nazi cause, Anne publicly supported him out of wifely loyalty. On their return to the U.S. and with her husband's encouragement, Anne launched a successful literary career, publishing memoirs, poetry and chronicles of her aerial adventures. Although not as exhaustive as Scott Berg's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Charles, this sympathetic portrayal of Anne as a wife, mother, poet and feminist may well find a readership more interested in a talented woman's creative struggle than in the oft-told Lindbergh story. Photos not seen by PW. Agent, Georges Borchardt; BOMC selection; 6-city author tour.