Rating: 
Summary: Hertog book not "the first, full-length biography"
Review: I was surprised to read Susan Hertog and her publisher's assertion on the dust jacket that she has written "the first, full-length biography" of the famous wife of Charles Lindbergh. I wrote the first, full-length biography of Mrs. Lindbergh, entitled ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH:A GIFT FOR LIFE, which was published to glowing reviews in 1993. The Viking-Penguin paperback edition is still in print. One hopes that Ms. Hertog's other facts and analysis of Mrs. Lindbergh's life are more accurate.
Rating: 
Summary: My facts have been meticulously researched and documented
Review: I would like to thank the readers of my book for taking the time to write so many thoughtful reviews. I wrote this book because there were so many studies of Charles, and no in-depth study of Anne. The life of this brilliant and courageous woman, who accomplished so much at a time when women's lives were so constrained, has been obscured by the celebrity of her husband. Yet, her insights into marriage, love, family, and career are more relevant today than they were a half century ago when she wrote Gift From the Sea. The life and work of Anne Lindbergh address crucial questions that have preoccupied men and women for three generations. The constructive criticism you have given me has increased my admiration of the reading audience. Of course, it would have been wonderful if all of them were raves--- but such is a writer's life. In respectful response to the comments of some readers, let me assure all readers that the facts in ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH have been meticulously researched and documented. (See the 50 pages of footnotes that follow the text.) Despite my not having access to the private papers Anne and Charles Lindbergh at Yale, I have drawn from many primary sources to write my book. To name just a few: *The Dwight Morrow Papers at Amherst College *A portion of the Elizabeth Morrow Papers at Smith College *The Mina Curtiss Collection at Smith College *The Helen and Kurt Wolff Collection at Yale University *Lindbergh Family Papers at the Minnesota Historical Society as well as other private collections housed at the society *Lindbergh papers at The National Archives in Washington, D.C. *Primary documents at the Lindbergh Family Historical Site and Museum at Little Falls, Minnesota *Letters in private collections of friends and family of the Morrows and the Lindbergh's *Rockefeller Institute Archives *Franklin D. Roosevelt papers *New York Public Library collections *Harvard University Library collections *Columbia University Library collections *Chapin School archives *Elizabeth Morrow School archives *The Katharine and Truman Smith Papers at the Hoover Institute *The Hugh Wilson Papers at the Hoover Institute *The New Jersey State Police Archives at Trenton *The FBI Archives *Transcripts of the Bruno Richard Hauptmann Trial *Primary documents from the Yale collection published by scholars who have had access to the papers. I could go on. Furthermore, the Lindberghs were in the American newspapers and periodicals almost every day from 1927-1941. I read these, too. When important articles appeared in non-english speaking newspapers around the world, I had them translated. Most important, I had the privilege of ten interviews with Anne Morrow Lindbergh over the course of five years. These interviews constitute rare access to Mrs. Lindbergh, and remain unique historical documents. During our time together, Anne Lindbergh was open and honest and probing, which is her nature. I assume she kept on inviting me back because she believed I was an honest and serious scholar, with no distorting preconceptions, who wanted to understand her life and her work. I also conducted nearly 100 other interviews. I met with immediate family members, close family friends, Anne's family doctor, Anne's family friend and lawyer, teachers and employees of the Elisabeth Morrow during the time her sons attended, CAL, Jr.'s nurse, Betty Gow, Anne's childhood friends in Englewood, her college friends at Smith, colleagues and friends of the Lindberghs in Minnesota, those who worked for the American government when the Lindberghs visited Germany, colleagues in America First, physicians who worked with Lindbergh and Carrel at the Rockefeller Institute, those who worked with the Lindberghs in their conservationist projects, biographers of Charles, WWII historians, journalists who interviewed and wrote about the Lindberghs, experts in the fields of female and marital psychology, and scholars of twentieth century feminist literature. I could go on. Essential to my work were the writings of Anne and Charles Lindbergh. Anne published 5 books containing excerpts from her letters and diaries (deposited at Yale), 2 travelogues, 3 novels, a meditation on war, another on the environment and a collection of poetry. She also gave numerous speeches, and wrote essays and articles. Charles wrote at least 3 autobiographical works, plus numerous essays and speeches, and published his War-Time Journals (deposited at Yale). I read and studied them all The reader will note that source material comes in many forms. Anne's novels, travelogues, and poems, like many of those written by women in the early 20th century, are often in code. The quiet surface of her work, meant to preserve Charles' heroic image and Anne's own sense of Victorian virtue, belies the passion and vision she presents. But analyzed and placed in the context of Anne's experiences, these literary pieces become windows into her feelings, relationships, and evolving perceptions and ideas, invaluable to a biographer seeking to understand her subject. I respect my subject and her family, and my readers too much not to have been meticulous in my scholarship. There is no formula for writing a good biography, but there is one cardinal rule: a author cannot make up the facts. Thank you for your time and interest. Susan Hertog
Rating: 
Summary: a wife and mother's view
Review: I write this review a day after the New York Times reviewed Anne Morrow Lindbergh and I have to wonder if the Times reviewer is married or has children. It's possible that a reader needs that kind of insight to adequately review a story that is not simply about a celebrity wife and famous author in her own right, but about a woman who struggled for such a long time with her duties as a wife and mother and her desires as a woman and writer. This book is more than biography - i think it becomes clear that the author is sympathetic, as I was, to Anne Morrow Lindbergh's plight. Once you have children, everything changes. Responsibility, guilt about leaving your children, fear that you will lose yourself if you devote all your time to them and none to yourself - where is the balance? And no matter how much men try to change, they seem, over the generations, to stay much the same. There is the dilemma, so interestingly and exhaustively explored in this wonderfully researched work.
Rating: 
Summary: Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life
Review: I'm really bothered by a couple of things. On page 214 the author has Anne celebrating what would have been her firstborn son's third birthday, on June 22, 1933. The author states that at that time Anne was having dreams of the baby she was expecting. But her second child, Jon, was born on August 16, 1932 (even according to her own Family Tree in the back of the book). Is it me missing something or is this incredibly sloppy work? Also, in the first photo section there are two pictures of Anne both dated circa 1920. Even if one picture was taken in January and the other in December there is still too much of a difference in Anne's looks for them to both have been taken in 1920. It appears to me to be about a four or five year age difference. There might be other mistakes in the author's "facts" and it makes me distrust the author's reliability.
Rating:
Summary: In Answer to Houston
Review: In Answer to the reader from Houston. Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Diaries and Letters are published! That's how readers have access to them.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Biography
Review: Loved it! This book combines mystery, adventure, and a beautiful love story. Susan Hertog gave us a wonderful portrait of a fascinating woman.
Rating:
Summary: Anne M. Lindbergh: A Life
Review: Ms. Hertog is not a writer, but more a compiler of other people's writings. It is obvious that she has strong feelings against Charles Lindbergh for various reasons, and therefore, spends more time presenting his errors and weaknesses than in presenting Anne Lindbergh's strengths. She has not caught the real essence of a warm and delightful person. I found this book fragmented and disturbing.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Gem
Review: Susan Hertog manifests a unique ability to capture the elusive life of a very important woman. Hertog's prose is a pleasure to read in itself, and only adds to the lustre and complexity of Mrs. Lindbegh's story.
Rating: 
Summary: Susan Hertog's Incomplete Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Review: Susan Hertog takes full advantage of ten audiences with her subject, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She manages to capture the complexities of Mrs. Lindbergh's character and the contradictions of her marriage to an American icon, Charles Lindbergh. The fact that the Lindbergh family has largely disavowed the book doesn't detract from Ms. Hertog's insights. Unfortunately, the lengthy book, published almost 20 years after Charles Lindbergh died in 1974, virtually ends with his death...when Anne Morrow Lindbergh was 68 years old (she lived on until 2002). Almost nothing of Mrs. Lindbergh's life in widowhood is mentioned, which gives the unintended impression that in the final analysis, she was simply Charles Lindbergh's wife, not an accomplished woman deserving of her own biography. In fact, the middle-aged Anne Morrow Lindbergh became a role model for working women, albeit she was always too self-effacing to occupy a leadership position in the gender wars.
Rating:
Summary: Susan Hertog's Incomplete Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Review: Susan Hertog takes full advantage of ten audiences with her subject, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She manages to capture the complexities of Mrs. Lindbergh's character and the contradictions of her marriage to an American icon, Charles Lindbergh. The fact that the Lindbergh family has largely disavowed the book doesn't detract from Ms. Hertog's insights. Unfortunately, the lengthy book, published almost 20 years after Charles Lindbergh died in 1974, virtually ends with his death...when Anne Morrow Lindbergh was 68 years old (she lived on until 2002). Almost nothing of Mrs. Lindbergh's life in widowhood is mentioned, which gives the unintended impression that in the final analysis, she was simply Charles Lindbergh's wife, not an accomplished woman deserving of her own biography. In fact, the middle-aged Anne Morrow Lindbergh became a role model for working women, albeit she was always too self-effacing to occupy a leadership position in the gender wars.
|
