War Within and Without

The story of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's life, begun in Bring Me a Unicorn, continues in this fifth and final published volume of her diaries and letters. This record of the Lindberghs' wartime years is emotionally charged by the struggle between the American isolationists, who counted among their membership Charles Lindbergh, and the interventionists, who included Anne's mother and sister. In her introduction, the author sets the historical record of these years straight, fairly and equitably, before letting the diaries and letters speak with the voice of anguished immediacy. A gentle, intensely responsive woman and a pacifist, Anne experienced the conflicts of the war years -- within her own family as well as in the world -- with excruciated sensitivity. She speaks here of the many aspects of her life -- supporting an embattled husband, creating several new homes, bearing and raising children, pursuing her writing career -- and the reader sees her as she was, valiant and vulnerable, loving and beloved. What emerges from these pages is the story of the bond between Charles and Anne: two extraordinary people, tested in stress and found not wanting.