Reeve Lindbergh •
Under a Wing •
Reeve Lindbergh, younger daughter of aviator Charles Lindbergh and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, revisits her childhood with finely tuned grace and deep sensibility. A lesser writer might be tempted to make capital of such famous parents; not so Lindbergh.
Her gift for immediacy shows in every line of this vividly textured memoir. The big brown sponge her mother uses in the bathtub resembles a human brain to young Lindbergh’s eyes; the arched front door of their home looks like “a giant Gothic waffle.”
Whenever her father returns from a trip, he calls the children into his study one by one to discuss behavior and values; Lindbergh teaches herself to read upside down by peering at the list on his desk to see what she’ll be lectured about next. “Freedom and Responsibility were good for half an hour, sometimes half an hour each.”
But this same serious man carries his children on his shoulders and tucks them in with bedtime games: “He would parade a collection of imaginary animals across our backs . . . sometimes he made me laugh to the point of near hysteria with a ticklish scamper of squirrels up and down my spine.”
Her mother exudes a calm, loving stability, as you might expect from the author of Gift from the Sea. “Her mere presence in a house, would heal, soothe, and uplift us.” In the writings of both her parents, Lindbergh finds familiar, trusted voices, those that anchored her childhood and linger in her mind decades later.
“In my profession,” her father tells her, “you only fall once.” Lindbergh herself falls not at all in this quiet masterpiece.
Click here to read an interview with Reeve Lindbergh.
Click here to read a review of Nobody’s Orphan by Anne Lindbergh.
How timely — a friend is currently reading a bio of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and for her birthday this month I may just pick up this memoir to accompany that bio. Thanks!
What a wonderful review! Thank you so much. I’ve been traveling with a new book we’ve edited over the past several years, my mother’s diaries and letters from 1947 to 1986, AGAINST WIND AND TIDE. It’s been a joy to do this work, but I’ve almost forgotten about my own writing. You’ve given me a terrific and very kind reminder!
Reeve L
Thank you so much for visiting, Reeve. I’m delighted that you like the review.
I didn’t know about the new book of AML’s writings until I came across this with the message from Reeve. If you see this, Reeve, I wanted to say how thrilled I am you’ve released the “what happened next” in your mother’s series of journals. I’m a writer, too, and her diaries and letters have been a touchstone for me over many years. I wrote a letter to her back in 1993 to thank her for all her books had meant to me. Under a Wing and No More Words were beautiful, and I loved them, too. Thank you!
Kristen Lovgren