The Flower and the Nettle is Anne's return to the living. It covers 1936 to 1939. After the death of her first born son she and Charles take their second son, Jon, to England for an "indefinite" stay. They are literally driven out of their own country by the media's insatiable need to photograph and question the family. First, it was Charles Lindbergh's fame, then it was the kidnapping and murder of their first child. It is at a rambling rented cottage in England called Long Barn that Anne and Charles can finally relax and be themselves again. Jon is allowed to play freely on the lawn without massive hyper-vigilant supervision. Anne is able to concentrate on her writing. It is here that humor returns to her diaries and letters. She says things like, "It is so delicious" (p 30), and "living passionately in the present" (p 31). Later, after her third son Land is born, Anne and her family move to Illiec off the coast of France. This is the "flower" part of her life. The "nettle" is the approach of World War II and the ensnaring politics. Following Charles to Russia for business Anne vocalizes her discontent with the country. She uses words like dirty, hideous, mediocrity, drab, shoddy, third-rate and glum to describe such things as the poor middle class. She is quick to comment negatively on their fashions and complexions. This took me by surprise. What I needed to keep in mind is the intense scrutiny Anne and her family felt. The longer they stay away from America, the more "pro-Nazi" they are "villainized" as being. ( )

The fourth book in a series of letters and diaries by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Each previous book has had its own fascinating points of interest--the courtship and marriage, the early air travels together, the kidnapping, the exile to England and now The Flower and the Nettle takes the Lindbergh's to France in a continuation of their self-imposed exile from America. Here for a time we see them on a remote island off the coast of Brittany which they bought in their passion for privacy. Their house on the island has no water or electricity and we get a flavor of the frustrations of impatient Americans dealing with rural workmen with a timetable of their own. For the winter of 1939 they go to live in Paris where we are taken by the popular Lindberghs into the salons and dining rooms of the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Ambassador Bullitt. Anne Morrow Lindbergh has a great talent for description of people and places. We can picture the rooms and grounds, the servants, the food, the flowers and the various people that comprise the occasion. Her perceptive analyses of the characters are joined by a quote or two from them that illustrates her point in a wonderful way. Throughout the series we are watching the development and maturation of two very dissimilar personalities with very different backgrounds as they give to each other from different worlds what the other lacks. ( )