Melanie Benjamin

Lavinia Warren was only 32 inches high, but had ambitions that were not limited by her diminutive size. She was a real person, more popularly known as Mrs General Tom Thumb – the wife of P T Barnum’s famous “oddity.” In the midst of Civil War, their wedding was front-page news. They were received by Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, and heads of state around the world. They were befriended by the Astors, Vanderbilts and other high society families. They were the Brad and Angelina of show more their day, mobbed by crowds wherever they went, written about by reporters, the subjects of gossip and rumor, and victims of their own fame. All of this is true, but this book is a work of fiction.

Benjamin does a wonderful job of bringing Vinnie to life. The novel depicts a woman of great intelligence and drive. She is shown to be cunning, witty, talented and strong-willed. She is also vulnerable, frightened, angry, and cold, suppressing her feelings to protect herself as best she can. Her partnership with Barnum is wonderfully imagined and beautifully told. Benjamin gives us a woman who is defined by her character, not her height. All this is presented against a backdrop of historical events – Civil War, the opening of the West, and life in the Gilded Age.

I really liked this book. I was completely mesmerized by Vinnie’s story, and that of the other members of her troupe. I grew up in San Antonio Texas, the home of the Hertzberg Circus Collection. When I was a child I spent many a Saturday visiting the collection, which was housed in the main Public Library downtown. It is the oldest and largest public collection of circus memorabilia in America. There is a significant amount of Tom Thumb memorabilia; one of the artifacts is the coach custom-made for General Tom Thumb. Unfortunately, by 2001 the building had deteriorated so much that the collection was at risk. It was moved to storage and is now conserved by the Witte Museum. It is not currently on display, though the many volumes of books and records are available to scholars for research (by appointment only). show less

A fictionalized account of the life of Alice Pleasance Hargreaves, nee Liddell, the woman generally supposed to be the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. Her childhood friendship with Charles Dodgson, her brief romance with Prince Leopold, and her eventual marriage to Reginald Hargreaves are all part of this novel, but the thread that runs through the whole thing is the question of whether Dodgson behaved inappropriately towards her, and what caused the sudden break between him and the show more Liddell family when Alice was 11 years old.

This was a fascinating, sometimes uncomfortable read, skirting the edges of the historical record and playing around in the hazy places left by destroyed letters and missing diaries. It sent me down many Wikipedia rabbit holes (yes, see what I did there), and I feel like I learned a lot about several Victorian figures and the Oxford of the mid-1800s. I was also freshly irritated at Victorian social mores as embodied in Alice's mother and older sister, just as the author intended. If you enjoy reading about this period, or like to look behind the curtain at the creation of beloved literary classics, I would recommend this book to you. show less

'The Aviator's Wife' by Melanie Benjamin is very fast and emotional read. I was overwhelmed me by the sharp historical details of the reactions of the public to Lucky Lindbergh's flight. There was the ever present popping of flash bulbs, the rude remarks by the public and the terrible realization that you and your family could never be safe when in the public eye.

This book is not about Charles Lindberg although Anne Morrow's life would have never been the same if she hadn't married her hero. show more Anne grew up being her daddy's "good girl", eager to please and dependable to a fault. This causes her great anguish until she was finally able to emerge a truly confident woman who did not have to hide her feelings and thoughts.

Instead of book full of facts and dates like a regular biography, Melanie Benjamin wrote one based on her interpretation of Anne's emotional reaction to the important events in her life and what being married to Charles Lindberg must have been like. I love this form of biography. I felt the pain that Anne felt when people called her Mrs. Lindberg, although she was a Smith graduate, had a pilot's license, could do celestial navigation and had so many achievements like being the first woman to fly a glider.

Anne Morrow Lindberg's feelings of self-hatred were easily evident when she hid her true feeling when meeting the Gorings at the 1936 Summer Olympics and heard discussions about the purity of the Nordic Race. Her father was half Jewish so that made it even more painful.

Her pain was excruciating when her son was taken from her and the publicity surrounding the event was so heartbreaking that it hurt to read about it. She had joys in her life but the tragedies made them seem so rare and sparking like the dew on the grass. Before reading this book, I had previously read Anne Morrow's famous book, 'Gift from the Sea' and also book about Charles Lindberg (the title long forgotten. This book was different; it made me understand her life and the emotional torture that she went through.

I am very grateful that Melanie Benjamin wrote this book. I would recommend this book to all women and to men who want to know and understand women better. In fact, I think I even understand myself better after reading this book.

I received this Advance Reading Copy of `The Aviator's Wife" from the Amazon Vine Program and that in no way influenced my thoughts. show less

I fell in love with Alice I Have Been straight away. Alice Liddell is the famed little girl who took a tumble down the rabbit hole. Benjamin has taken her life story and presented it in a fictional yet spellbinding way. Starting with Alice as a precocious seven year old who befriends a subtly sinister gentleman by the name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Everyone turns their heads to ignore the slightly inappropriate relationship Alice has with stuttering Mr. Dodgson. I found myself asking what show more was Benjamin's motive for so much alluding to impropriety? There is a lot of trembling that goes on...It whispers of pedophilia and the strange this is, Alice, even at seven, is perceptive to know something is amiss. However by age ten, almost eleven she is the instigator, asking Mr. Dodgson to "wait" for her, a statement that is accompanied by the proverbial wink and nod. Years later, Alice is rumored to be involved with Prince Leopold and her childhood relationship with Mr. Dodgson is all but a faded memory...until the Prince needs to ask his mum for her approval to marry Alice. It is then all of the allusions to impropriety make sense. Everything begins to make sense. show less