Scan barcode
A review by ewein2412
No More Words: A Journal of My Mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh by Reeve Lindbergh
I am a huge fan of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, both as a role model and as a writer, and her daughter Reeve speaks with the same elegant, down-to-earth, masterful voice. This book chronicles the final two years of AML’s life, from Reeve’s point of view, and it is far more a book about life than death: Reeve’s life, too, and that of her family, and all the people that come and go and continue their own fierce living in the face of AML’s long dying. Anne Morrow Lindbergh chronicled her own life in a series of published letters and diaries, most of which I have read, and it feels right to have the life “completed” in my head. I love that Reeve has given us this book, which speaks so eloquently for her mother after Anne’s own voice has been silenced.
It hits home with me on all kinds of fronts. My own grandmother is 93, the same age as AML at the start of this book, but in contrast to the frail heroine my grandmother is active and independent, still driving, living alone in theory but in reality caring for two great-grandchildren aged 10 and 14. My mother-in-law—a contrast again—though ten years younger than my grandmother is suffering a mental decline similar to AML’s (for different reasons). And randomly, how cool is this: AML’s two daughters and I all share the same birthday, a silly little coincidence that always makes me think I must have a special affinity with them. Of course, I and the Lindbergh women are all writers and fliers. The reason I was drawn to AML in the first place was because she was a writer and a pilot, like me married to a considerably better and more experienced pilot. The AML book that first seduced me was not Gift from the Sea but Listen! The Wind, because, unbelievably but unquestionably, it reminded me of my own early flying experiences with my own husband.
So, No More Words is a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. It’s a painful and sometimes hilarious chronicle of the deterioration and death of a loved one. But it’s very life-affirming, and a fitting tribute, and I think Reeve Lindbergh is as gifted a writer as her mother.
Reeve’s own autobiography, Under a Wing, is also worth reading.
It hits home with me on all kinds of fronts. My own grandmother is 93, the same age as AML at the start of this book, but in contrast to the frail heroine my grandmother is active and independent, still driving, living alone in theory but in reality caring for two great-grandchildren aged 10 and 14. My mother-in-law—a contrast again—though ten years younger than my grandmother is suffering a mental decline similar to AML’s (for different reasons). And randomly, how cool is this: AML’s two daughters and I all share the same birthday, a silly little coincidence that always makes me think I must have a special affinity with them. Of course, I and the Lindbergh women are all writers and fliers. The reason I was drawn to AML in the first place was because she was a writer and a pilot, like me married to a considerably better and more experienced pilot. The AML book that first seduced me was not Gift from the Sea but Listen! The Wind, because, unbelievably but unquestionably, it reminded me of my own early flying experiences with my own husband.
So, No More Words is a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. It’s a painful and sometimes hilarious chronicle of the deterioration and death of a loved one. But it’s very life-affirming, and a fitting tribute, and I think Reeve Lindbergh is as gifted a writer as her mother.
Reeve’s own autobiography, Under a Wing, is also worth reading.