No More Words: A Journal of My Mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- Book Review,
by Reeve Lindbergh
Amazon.com's Best of 2001
Her daughter's tender account of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's final 22 months is a fitting epitaph for an author who revealed her inner life with an honesty and sensitivity that have inspired generations of readers since Gift from the Sea was first published in 1955. This new volume also makes a fine companion for Under a Wing, Reeve Lindbergh's previous memoir about her parents' complex marriage and her own struggle to grapple with the legacy of her famous father, Charles Lindbergh. Yet it's not necessary to know anything about Anne's writing or Charles's exploits as an aviator to be moved by No More Words, which chronicles a day-to-day drama of worry, guilt, anger, and unexpected joy that will be familiar to anyone who has cared for an elderly, ailing parent. Drawing on a diary she kept from the time her mother came to live with her in May 1999 until Anne's death at age 94 in February 2001, Reeve Lindbergh deals first and foremost with her shock that her literate, articulate mother no longer had much use for words. "From the beginning of my life," she writes, "everything I understood was made plain to me in her language.... at each moment of my need she spoke the words I needed." But after a series of strokes, Anne spoke less and less, and not everything she said made sense. Reeve had to find meaning for herself; she had to accept her mother's increasing remoteness and take pleasure from the moments when Anne seemed to come back to her. She traces that process in spare, eloquent prose complemented by excerpts from her mother's works: "It was very important to me that her writing voice, too, should be heard," Reeve states. "The truth about this book is that it is not mine but ours." --Wendy Smith
From Publishers Weekly
After suffering several strokes, Anne Morrow Lindbergh (who died this year) spent the last year of her life in Vermont, on the farm of her daughter Reeve's family. Just as Anne undertook Gift from the Sea in 1955 as a spiritual recon, so Reeve (Under a Wing) here explores her feelings about her visibly aging mother. Early on, Reeve dreams she's sitting on a railway bench flanked by two women: the vibrant mother of decades earlier and the ghostly incarnation living with her now. "You just have to take care of her," her "real" mother tells her. "Taking care" is not about feeding and bathing (the domain of some extraordinary Buddhist caregivers), but witnessing her transition from old age into death. Any reader who's cared for an elderly, dying loved one will hear echoes of his or her own wracking doubts. When they're sitting still, staring out into space, we want them to talk or smile, participate "in some way that we can understand." We panic at inappropriate, off-the-wall remarks was it simply theatrical or has another neurological byway collapsed? And the kicker: however much we've done for them, we feel guilty that we can't keep them from dying. With her mother now shunning speech, Reeve too gravitates to a lean, reporting style. Quotations from Anne's writings are apt but brief. And while the reader expects death in the end, it's still wrenching when it comes. (Oct. 11)Forecast: Anne Morrow Lindbergh is popular with female baby boomers (witness the success of Susan Hertog's 2001 biography of her and the continued interest in 1955's Gift from the Sea). A first serial in More magazine, a seven-city author tour and the Lindbergh name will insure strong sales.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Lindbergh recounts caring for her mother during the last year of her life. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
In a book best described as "intimate," Lindbergh shares her deepest insights while caring for her elderly mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Challenged by the perils of old age and a series of strokes, Mrs. Lindbergh made her final home on a farm in Vermont, in a house adjacent to her daughter's. Famous for her writing and her proficiency as a navigator for her aviator husband, Charles, her retreat into silence and varying stages of dementia distressed Reeve, who longed to communicate with her once eloquent mother. Reeve writes fluidly about her mother's fading, expressing herself poignantly and posing powerful questions about life, death, and the depth of silence. Mrs. Lindbergh died at 94 in February 2001, leaving behind an adoring, exceptionally talented family and a treasury of writing for the world. Her daughter's account of caring for a loved one who is terminally ill should solace anyone who has undergone a similar experience. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Meg Laughlin The Miami Herald Intimate [and] down-to-earth...funny and engaging...honest.
Book Description
In 1999 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the famed aviator and author, moved from her home in Connecticut to the farm in Vermont where her daughter, Reeve, and Reeve's family live. Mrs. Lindbergh was in her nineties and had been rendered nearly speechless years earlier by a series of small strokes that also left her frail and dependent on others for her care. As an accomplished author who had learned to write in part by reading her mother's many books, Reeve was deeply saddened and frustrated by her inability to communicate with her mother, a woman long recognized in her family and throughout the world as a gifted communicator. No More Words is a moving and compassionate memoir of the final seventeen months of Reeve's mother's life. Reeve writes with great sensitivity and sympathy for her mother's plight, while also analyzing her own conflicting feelings. Anyone who has had to care for an elderly parent disabled by Alzheimer's or stroke will understand immediately the heartache and anguish Reeve suffered and will find comfort in her story.
Download Description
In 1999 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the famed aviator and author, moved from her home in Connecticut to the farm in Vermont where her daughter, Reeve, and Reeve's family live. Mrs. Lindbergh was in her nineties and had been rendered nearly speechless years earlier by a series of small strokes that also left her frail and dependent on others for her care. As an accomplished author who had learned to write in part by reading her mother's many books, Reeve was deeply saddened and frustrated by her inability to communicate with her mother, a woman long recognized in her family and throughout the world as a gifted communicator. No More Words is a moving and compassionate memoir of the final seventeen months of Reeve's mother's life. Reeve writes with great sensitivity and sympathy for her mother's plight, while also analyzing her own conflicting feelings. Anyone who has had to care for an elderly parent disabled by Alzheimer's or stroke will understand immediately the heartache and anguish Reeve suffered and will find comfort in her story.
About the Author
Reeve Lindbergh is the youngest child of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and the author of numerous books, including Under a Wing, a memoir of her earlier years. She lives with her family near St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
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