A REVIEW in Postcards 4

C: Musings from a Redhead.

I read a lot. You know that. I usually post the title or author of the latest book down there on the bottom of each entry. The next one is going to be a Jonathan Kellerman. He crafts a good tale, and tho often frightened, I read them to the end. “Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Her Life” by Susan Hertog had a great tale in her hands, but came up a bit dry. I couldn’t read it to the end and put it in my “to read” pile. It sat there for years.

I grew up reading Lindbergh’s first two volumes: “North to the Orient,” “Listen the Wind. They were stuck in the dark of the upstairs hall bookcase, and I was enamored the moment found them and started reading. They gave this struggling kid a gift of comfort while I failed in school. I have those two volumes downstairs now.

I rediscovered Anne Morrow Lindbergh at another low point in my life. My hangovers were brutal, and I was trying hard to stay off drugs. Somehow her words reached through my haze and woke me up. Briefly. I kept a journal, and I was drawn to these new and beautifully crafted diaries and letters. The fact that she put them out there for everyone to read was a wonderfully encouraging thing to me. I never thought beyond those words she wrote to see the world behind them or the editing that went into them.

Hertog doesn’t delve deeply into this flawed marriage. This volume was published in 1999, and so there is no mention of her two affairs. One affair surfaces, and Hertog glosses over it. Her deep love for Antoine de Saint-Exupery and the comfort he gives her is generously described. But her husband’s brutality is set firmly aside as Anne comes into her own as a writer. She edited her diaries and letters so much of her sexuality and passion are cut out.

Going through a pile of books to give away, I picked this book up again. I skipped ahead a bit, and much to my surprise found myself enjoying it. The last third is a more open writing perhaps not limited by the interviews this book is based on. I’m keeping the book.

One of the best of the books about Anne Morrow Lindbergh is Reeve Morrow Lindbergh’s volume, “No More Words.” Although Reeve shares with us her mother’s wordless last years, they offer far more openness than Hertog’s
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• Himself: Working on Bobbies boxes.


• Myself: Dressed in sweats not PJ’s, but I’m very comfortable. Veryy pleased that Carold liked my Crow quilt. She agreed that it had to go to an outside long-arm quilter to get finished.


• Reading: Jonathan Kellerman.


• Gratitude’s: For being alive.