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Book Review of The Aviator's Wife

The Aviator's Wife
reviewed on + 379 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


Melanie Benjamin has written a riveting novel told from the first-person viewpoint of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who is an ambassador's daughter, an accomplished writer, a mother, an aviatrix and THE aviator's wife. All of these descriptions shape and define her, but none more so than her marriage to the enigmatic Charles Lindbergh.

The diffident, idealistic Anne at the beginning of the novel is not the Anne at its end. During the course of her marriage to Charles, she suffered unimaginable heartbreak when her first child was kidnapped and murdered, confusion about her role in her rigid husband's life and inconceivable betrayal by a man with the title of "hero." This book was obviously well researched and provides an insight, although fictionalized, into the complicated marriage of two diverse individuals whose mark on 20th century history is well known.