What do you think?
Rate this book
The Steep Ascent
A fictional account of an actual incident which occurred over the Alps during a flight to India.
128 pages, paperback
First published January 1, 1944
83 people want to read
About the author
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
82 books966 followersAnne Morrow Lindbergh was born in 1906. She married Charles Lindbergh in 1929 and became a noted aviator in her own right, eventually publishing several books on the subject and receiving several aviation awards. Gift from the Sea, published in 1955, earned her international acclaim. She was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and the Aviation Hall of Fame of New Jersey. War Within and Without, the penultimate installment of her published diaries, received the Christopher Award in 1980. Mrs. Lindbergh died in 2001 at the age of ninety-four.
Not to be confused with her daughter Anne Lindbergh.
Not to be confused with her daughter Anne Lindbergh.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 30, 2024
A short book on flying. I think it's based on part of one of the long haul flights Anne and her husband took. This book I think gives us a bit of a look into their marriage, Eve speaks about wanting to stay home with her child but afraid that staying home will end her marriage which in reality it kind of did. After Anne stopped flying with him they did drift apart. But this book also tells of Anne's love of flying and the beauty of it in her eyes. Not exactly a gripping read but still beautifully written and almost poetic like a lot of her books are. There were moments of suspense that did make the book more engaging but it was mostly just a very light easy read.
November 19, 2024
compared to reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) to The Steep Ascent (1944) was like night and day in terms of writing styles... essentially the author writes in a timeless tone and it's not dry at all
it wasn't really about the physical plot, but the mental plot of the main character eve
such amazing writing, the whole book was so thought provoking
"What a terrible burden it was, once the eyes were opened to it, this sense of the value of life, even ordinary life." (4)
"It was only the anteroom of death, then, that was so terrible." (107)
"There is something within me waiting for me- (With painful expectation she yearned toward it.)- something beautiful but I do not know what it is." (109)
"This then was life: -not to be hurried, not to be afraid, not to be imprisoned in oneself. To be open, aware, vulnerable-even to fear, even to pain, even to death. Then only did one feel ecstasy filling one up to the brim. Then only did one know what life was. Then only did one taste it, drink of it, drown in it." (111)
"Life was a gift, yes, but not a possession. It was given in trust-like a child. One was dedicated to it but one could not own it." (120)
read again: for sure
it wasn't really about the physical plot, but the mental plot of the main character eve
such amazing writing, the whole book was so thought provoking
"What a terrible burden it was, once the eyes were opened to it, this sense of the value of life, even ordinary life." (4)
"It was only the anteroom of death, then, that was so terrible." (107)
"There is something within me waiting for me- (With painful expectation she yearned toward it.)- something beautiful but I do not know what it is." (109)
"This then was life: -not to be hurried, not to be afraid, not to be imprisoned in oneself. To be open, aware, vulnerable-even to fear, even to pain, even to death. Then only did one feel ecstasy filling one up to the brim. Then only did one know what life was. Then only did one taste it, drink of it, drown in it." (111)
"Life was a gift, yes, but not a possession. It was given in trust-like a child. One was dedicated to it but one could not own it." (120)
read again: for sure
October 20, 2017
Beautifully written novel with no real plot. I still would've given it 5 stars, but I thought it really should've ended at the second to last chapter. The last chapter is all about the author's need to explain what it all meant. Which wasn't what I thought it meant at all and kind of soured me on the story. Prior to that, I got lost in the richness of the experience. Definitely worth reading... well, except for that last bit.
March 5, 2021
This is my second read of Anne Morrow Lindberg’s after Gift of the Sea. It was a suspenseful little story with beautiful analogies and Biblical alliterations sprinkled about. How can one experience the joy of life without being afraid of the scary things? What a great question and a worthy attempt at an answer.
September 18, 2011
I adore everything this woman did. Giving it 4 stars in a fight for my own objectivity :] http://images.knusoft.knubware.com/20...
Read
April 25, 2017Like a theme by an undergraduate. Reeks of women's magazines. Based on her actual flying experience.
(read 10/2/67)
(read 10/2/67)
March 26, 2024
Bring me a unicorn is still my favorite, but I love Lindbergh’s poetic, romantic writing.
November 13, 2025
The Steep Ascent, published in 1944, was Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s first novel. Her first two books North to the Orient and Listen! The Wind had been non-fiction accounts of flights with her husband, the famous aviator Charles Lindbergh. Morrow Lindbergh also unfortunately published a short book in 1940 titled The Wave of the Future, a defense of American non-intervention in World War II that didn’t really renounce fascism.
The Steep Ascent was apparently based on a real incident during a flight the Lindberghs took over the Alps. I can’t help but wonder if Morrow Lindbergh’s decision to turn the flight into a novel was informed by the unpopularity of Charles and Anne’s embrace of isolationism. As World War II dragged on, I doubt there were people clamoring to read any non-fiction by either Lindbergh. Framing the story as a novel and setting it in the pre-World War II era was perhaps an attempt to make the book less tied to current events.
It’s always a curious experience to read a novel that you know is very closely connected to real life. It’s hard not to see the characters of “Eve” and “Gerald” as the real people Anne and Charles. Morrow Lindbergh does make a slight attempt to differentiate Gerald from Charles, as Gerald is British. But when we read about the resentment Eve has towards Gerald when they follow the wrong valley in the Alps, it's easy to think that it’s actually Anne’s resentment towards Charles.
Morrow Lindbergh was an excellent writer, and there are excellent passages throughout The Steep Ascent. As frustrated as Eve is about packing for their journey, she realizes that if Gerald ordered her to stay behind, “Why—all the delicate structure of their marriage would tumble, like those glasses that are shattered, without a human hand touching them, by a single note ringing at precisely the right vibration.” (p.23)
There are excellent descriptive passages about flying throughout the novel, as you might expect, given the extent of Morrow Lindbergh’s experiences with flight. One of my favorite passages was this one about taking off: “There comes a moment in a take-off, long before the wheels leave the ground, when you know you are going to get off. It is as though at some indefinable point the plane shifts its allegiance from earth to sky.” (p.47)
There are lots of spiritual and Biblical allusions throughout The Steep Ascent, perhaps a foretelling of Morrow Lindbergh’s most famous book, Gift from the Sea, published in 1955.
Because Eve can’t communicate very easily with Gerald, thanks to the roar of the plane’s engine, nearly all of the novel takes place within her stream of consciousness. I really liked this beautiful passage: “To appreciate life, Eve was beginning to realize vaguely, you must take it at all its levels; at its top crust, at its middle everyday layer, and then at some deeper inner core she wasn’t quite sure of and couldn’t analyze and had only felt once or twice in her life, in great moments.” (p.64)
Morrow Lindbergh started writing the novel in late 1942. She wrote in her diary entry for November 17, 1942: “I find it is quite painful to push open that inner door. It is not that the experiences then were painful nor yet that they were so happy that I look back with too much longing on them. It’s just that I feel it—life—so vividly, almost more vividly than I did then, and its very vividness is a kind of anguish.” (War Within and Without, p.270-1) So it often goes for artists, who feel so deeply.
In her diary entry for February 4, 1944, Anne is faced with bad news: “C has seen Harcourt, Brace, who report that the Book-of-the-Month Club has turned down my book—apparently because they have received a number of fanatical letters saying that if the club took my book they’d resign...Harcourt, Brace has planned a 25,000 first edition (half of what the first edition of Listen! The Wind was.)” (War Within and Without, p.361) This shows us the very real difference between the world of 1938 and 1944, and how public perception of the Lindberghs had shifted greatly during that time.
The Steep Ascent is an interesting little book, at 128 pages it’s really more of a novella length, but worth reading for people interested in the Lindberghs.
The Steep Ascent was apparently based on a real incident during a flight the Lindberghs took over the Alps. I can’t help but wonder if Morrow Lindbergh’s decision to turn the flight into a novel was informed by the unpopularity of Charles and Anne’s embrace of isolationism. As World War II dragged on, I doubt there were people clamoring to read any non-fiction by either Lindbergh. Framing the story as a novel and setting it in the pre-World War II era was perhaps an attempt to make the book less tied to current events.
It’s always a curious experience to read a novel that you know is very closely connected to real life. It’s hard not to see the characters of “Eve” and “Gerald” as the real people Anne and Charles. Morrow Lindbergh does make a slight attempt to differentiate Gerald from Charles, as Gerald is British. But when we read about the resentment Eve has towards Gerald when they follow the wrong valley in the Alps, it's easy to think that it’s actually Anne’s resentment towards Charles.
Morrow Lindbergh was an excellent writer, and there are excellent passages throughout The Steep Ascent. As frustrated as Eve is about packing for their journey, she realizes that if Gerald ordered her to stay behind, “Why—all the delicate structure of their marriage would tumble, like those glasses that are shattered, without a human hand touching them, by a single note ringing at precisely the right vibration.” (p.23)
There are excellent descriptive passages about flying throughout the novel, as you might expect, given the extent of Morrow Lindbergh’s experiences with flight. One of my favorite passages was this one about taking off: “There comes a moment in a take-off, long before the wheels leave the ground, when you know you are going to get off. It is as though at some indefinable point the plane shifts its allegiance from earth to sky.” (p.47)
There are lots of spiritual and Biblical allusions throughout The Steep Ascent, perhaps a foretelling of Morrow Lindbergh’s most famous book, Gift from the Sea, published in 1955.
Because Eve can’t communicate very easily with Gerald, thanks to the roar of the plane’s engine, nearly all of the novel takes place within her stream of consciousness. I really liked this beautiful passage: “To appreciate life, Eve was beginning to realize vaguely, you must take it at all its levels; at its top crust, at its middle everyday layer, and then at some deeper inner core she wasn’t quite sure of and couldn’t analyze and had only felt once or twice in her life, in great moments.” (p.64)
Morrow Lindbergh started writing the novel in late 1942. She wrote in her diary entry for November 17, 1942: “I find it is quite painful to push open that inner door. It is not that the experiences then were painful nor yet that they were so happy that I look back with too much longing on them. It’s just that I feel it—life—so vividly, almost more vividly than I did then, and its very vividness is a kind of anguish.” (War Within and Without, p.270-1) So it often goes for artists, who feel so deeply.
In her diary entry for February 4, 1944, Anne is faced with bad news: “C has seen Harcourt, Brace, who report that the Book-of-the-Month Club has turned down my book—apparently because they have received a number of fanatical letters saying that if the club took my book they’d resign...Harcourt, Brace has planned a 25,000 first edition (half of what the first edition of Listen! The Wind was.)” (War Within and Without, p.361) This shows us the very real difference between the world of 1938 and 1944, and how public perception of the Lindberghs had shifted greatly during that time.
The Steep Ascent is an interesting little book, at 128 pages it’s really more of a novella length, but worth reading for people interested in the Lindberghs.
January 29, 2022
Absolutely loved this book. So much that I bought it for myself. And I never buy books, because I have way too many already. So many of her descriptions of situations or feelings I could recognize in myself -- I had never articulated them, but there they were, on the page. I was astonished that someone else had had the same particular feeling that I did. And the way she told us what she saw from the sky -- rich with awe and meaning.
December 26, 2025
Clearly written by a woman! It is so funny how our brains never stop and come up with crazy scenarios. Yet our husbands sit peacefully by and never realize the races run in our minds!
Great story, great details!
Great story, great details!
May 24, 2015
Love The Steep Ascent by Anne Morrow Lindberg. Very well written. I have to read more of her books. Just discovered this small book from my mother-in-law's collection. It took me a while to finish it because I am in the middle of proofreading my next book but I'm glad I finished it. I used to read a lot of book on flying. They were fascinating read but I developed a fear of flying and stopped reading about them. Glad to read about someone not afraid of flight. I wonder if this is biographical.
November 12, 2015
To read in vivid detail, this small sliver of what it was like to sit behind the cockpit of a small plane and travel eastward from England, over the Alps and to decent through the fog into Italy! AML's writing is clear,yet lyical and a delight.
April 14, 2014
Amazing!
October 13, 2009
Pilots would probably like this - she "waxed poetic" about flying a bit too much for my taste.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews