Imagine being so adored that you can’t go anywhere, think Princess Diana times two.  Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight in 1927 across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis made him a hero, forever changing his life. But the world’s idolization had a cost to him and his family.  Scrutinized at every level, the Lindberghs were revered at times and maligned at others. Melanie Benjamin’s novel “The Aviator’s Wife,” offers a chance to look inside the fishbowl of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s life.

The novel begins with Charles Lindbergh’s last flight home to Maui.  He is dying and wants to be buried at their Hawaiian home. Anne, his wife of 45 years, looks back over their relationship trying to find some comfort and understanding. Why Charles? Why?

Anne grieves, loves, shoulders the weight of her family and navigates the best she can in a male-dominated world.  Lindbergh was a total control freak!  Anne did everything she could to appease him.  Almost sounds like an old country western song, and in a way maybe it was. The oddness of the relationship began from the first date with his coolness and calculation and her utter amazement that someone like him would even look at her. Throughout the story, Ann struggled with her self-esteem never thinking much of herself.  Her initial detachment from their first-born child, Charley, in his first few months of his life was painful to read knowing that he would be kidnapped and die so young. Anne’s guilt was palpable, and she refocused her attention away from Lindbergh and to her children as her family grew. (more…)