The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin
This is the biographical novel of Anne Morrow, following her through all her incarnations – ambassador’s daughter, aviator’s wife, mother, a strong-willed independent woman. The author does take liberties with condensing timelines (which she fully admits to in the afterward) and her artistic license makes the story flow. We see what Anne’s life as the wife of Charles Lindbergh, a real life hero, was like, and I can’t help but wonder if any other woman would have been capable of holding things together like she did.
The most striking part of the narrative to me was just how invasive the press and the general public were in the Lindbergh’s lives. Their addresses (with maps!) were printed in newspapers. People would just show up at their door for an audience. Of course, the kidnapping of their firstborn is in the novel, and it seems that after that incident the media attention got worse.
While this is Anne’s story, we do see the hero through her eyes and can empathize with her and how difficult it must have been to be the aviator’s wife.
