Names of the Mountains
Books / Hardcover
ISBN: 0671731483 / Publisher: Simon & Schuster, December 1992
The children of world-famous aviator Cal Linley come together to deal with the deteriorating mental capacity of their mother
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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. The family members, who have been apart and living their own dramas for decades, gather to face the problem - and one another.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 thought they knew is no longer the same.This gifted writer's resonant new novel is filled with hope and grounded in the universal, a story to be read on many levels.
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