The Names of The Mountains; A Novel

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. First Printing (Stated). Hardcover. Very good/Good. Megan Feeney (author photograph), James Steinberg. 237, [3] pages. DJ is in a plastic sleeve and has a small chip at the top edge near the spine. Minor edge soiling. Signed by the author on the title page. Also inscribed by the author on the title page. Inscription reads: For Pat Trenner, with all warm wishes! Reeve. Signed by the previous owner on the front free end page. Reeve Lindbergh draws a profoundly intimate portrait of three generations of Linleys as they react to the gradual decline of their beloved matriarch. The Names of the Mountains is a sensitively drawn novel about the aging of a fearless heroine; it is a probing commentary of what happens to a family--any family--when the ground shifts beneath them, when the person they though they know is no longer the same. The Names of The Mountains is a powerful novel about the importance of memory, the tyranny of phenomenal fame, and the consequences--both joyous and tragic--of being an intensely private family in an insatiably public world. The novel opens as the children of the late Cal Linley--famous flyer, American hero--come together to deal with their mother's troubling lapses of memory. Alicia Linley, a famous writer and aviator in her own right, is scheduled to give an important interview, but the brave octogenarian seems to be unaware that she wavers between extraordinarily detailed recollections of her past and forgetting entirely who or where she is. Reeve Morrow Lindbergh (born October 2, 1945) is an American author from Caledonia County, Vermont who grew up in Darien, Connecticut as the daughter of aviator Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001). She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968. Lindbergh writes of her experiences growing up in the household of her famous father — with echoes of his famous transatlantic flight and the kidnapping of her eldest brother, events which occurred years before she was born. In The Names of the Mountains Lindbergh reveals what life as a Lindbergh was like after the death of her father through a fictional family. Charles did not allow his children to drink soda or eat candy, and he favored family discussion over watching television. He directed his family with a set of hard-and-fast rules. "There were only two ways of doing things—Father's way and the wrong way," Lindbergh noted. Derived from a Kirkus review: According to the author, daughter of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, this graceful family study is fully fictional. Righto...but: all the background matters mentioned here—from the death of the father in Hawaii to the loss of a first baby, etc.—plant an identifying flag squarely in Lindbergh territory, and add a special poignancy to this portrait of a family dealing with the incursions of age on their mother, through their love for her and one another. Driving from her home in Vermont with two teenaged girls and a little boy, Cressida travels to Connecticut and 80-year-old mother Alicia. Eventually, all of Alicia's children arrive, plus her sister and a loving neighbor; and throughout the few days of her visit, Cressida contemplates present worries and tragedies, and she also remembers: the patriarch, the famous flyer Cal, known to the younger generation as only a photo in a history book, and now recalled by his daughter with both fear and love. Did Cal know ``how often she [Alicia] escaped right out from under the blaze of words and into the shadowy protected realms of her inner self''? Some of Cressida's meditations have a stunning resonance with the Lindbergh story: Cal and Alicia were like ``a couple living perpetually with the sense of being watched, of guarding against watchers [but they] wrote volumes about themselves for publication.'' Lindbergh's prose has a gentle cadence and charm. With special value as an insight into a famous family.