The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

Adding to the new trend in fictionalized memoirs of famous wives is Melanie Benjamin’s The Aviator’s Wife, the story of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  Benjamin starts with their starstruck courtship and shares their life up through Charles’ death in 1974, all from Anne’s point of view.  Interspersed throughout are short chapters while Anne attends Charles as he is dying.  These chapters are teasers,  explained more fully as the book continues.  They are the author’s opportunity to make Charles admit to or take responsibility for his actions, and despite these admissions, Anne remains present to Charles at the end.

The Lindbergh’s  story is well-known, but Benjamin is insightful in her ability to share more of Anne’s thoughts, frustrations, and undying love for her larger than life husband, despite their large life (the travelling, the affairs,  the kidnapping, the children, the paparazzi at every turn…)   What I appreciate about these fictionalized accounts is that they often prompt me to read a little more…Lindbergh by  A. Scott Berg or Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. 

Worth the read!