Candace Fleming opens The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh at a moment of pure American mythmaking: May 1927, a crowd of 150,000 people waiting at Le Bourget airfield in Paris for a single-engine plane called the Spirit of St. Louis to land after 33.5 hours in the air. The audiobook, winner of the 2021 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults, with six starred reviews from major publications, follows the arc of what that moment made possible and what it helped destroy. That it does so with such unflinching clarity is what distinguishes it from the genre of admiring aviation biography.
Fleming, whose previous biography "The Family Romanov" established her as a nonfiction writer capable of holding historical horror and human complexity simultaneously, applies the same methodology to Lindbergh. The result is a portrait that takes the Atlantic crossing seriously as an achievement while refusing to allow that achievement to function as moral insulation. Charles Lindbergh was the first human to fly solo across the Atlantic. He was also a Nazi sympathizer, an anti-Semite, a eugenicist, a tireless promoter of theories about racial fitness, and a man whose "America First" speeches directly echoed rhetoric now recognizable from contemporary political life. Fleming draws those parallels explicitly.
Reviewer Cathy Becker, who read the book in two days, notes that Fleming "drew subtle parallels between the rise of fascism during his life and similar movements today." That word "subtle" is interesting, Fleming is actually fairly direct about the contemporary resonance, stating it outright in her framing rather than leaving it implicit. What Becker may mean is that the parallels are structurally woven into the narrative rather than delivered as editorial interruptions. Fleming lets the historical record speak with enough clarity that the reader does the connecting work without being lectured.
Reviewer Michael D. Moore, in a more traditionally admiring register, describes the book as covering Lindbergh's contributions to aviation success while also being candid about "this tormented man." The word "tormented" is generous, Fleming's portrait is less sympathetic than that framing suggests. Lindbergh was not a man in conflict with his darker beliefs; he held them consistently, promoted them publicly, and only retreated from anti-Jewish public statements after Pearl Harbor made such statements politically untenable. Fleming does not let him off with the "tormented hero" framing that an earlier generation of biographers preferred.
The kidnapping and murder of Lindbergh's baby son in 1932 receives full treatment here. Fleming handles it with appropriate gravity, this is the event that defined the second phase of Lindbergh's public life, transforming him from celebrated hero into tragic figure before his own extremist politics completed the collapse. The human cost of the kidnapping, and the circus-like media trial that followed, are among the most compelling chapters in the audiobook.
Why The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh Works as an Audiobook
Kirsten Potter is well suited to this material. The audiobook runs nearly 9.5 hours, and Fleming's prose moves between detailed archival research and accessible biographical narrative in ways that require a narrator who can modulate without jarring. Potter maintains a consistent authority that suits the scholarly grounding of the text while keeping the pacing accessible for the young adult audience the book is nominally aimed at, though as reviewer Becker and others note, the content and complexity serve adult history readers equally well.
The young adult designation is significant in one specific way: Fleming contextualizes Lindbergh's eugenicist beliefs with enough clarity that teen readers can understand what eugenics actually is and why it was embraced by mainstream figures in the 1920s and 1930s. This is not dumbed down, it is historically precise and pedagogically thoughtful. Adults reading alongside teens, or educators using the book in classroom contexts, will find the treatment sophisticated enough to generate genuine discussion.
Weak Spots in The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh
Fleming's thematic argument, that Lindbergh's story is not just history but warning, is present from the opening pages and sustained to the end. Listeners who want purely descriptive biography without explicit contemporary framing should know that Fleming makes her interpretive position clear. She is not writing a neutral survey. The six starred reviews from professional publications suggest that critical consensus found the approach justified; individual listeners with different expectations should calibrate accordingly.
The eugenics material and the detailed account of Nazi Germany's role in Lindbergh's worldview are handled with scholarly care but not sanitized. This is not a book that lets readers remain comfortable with any part of its subject's ideology. Fleming's resistance to the "complicated hero" framing that protects historical figures from their own worst beliefs is the book's greatest strength and potentially its most challenging quality for listeners who approach Lindbergh primarily through the aviation achievement.
At 9 hours and 38 minutes, the audiobook is a full listen. Fleming's research density means the middle sections, covering Lindbergh's 1930s political activism and his relationship with Nazi aviation officials, require attention rather than passive listening. The payoff is substantial, but this is not background audio.
Should You Listen to The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh?
History readers who want an unflinching account of how American heroism and American extremism coexisted in one celebrated figure will find this exactly what they are looking for. Teen readers with strong interests in 20th-century history, fascism, or the mechanics of celebrity culture will engage with it at a serious level. Adults who enjoyed Fleming's "The Family Romanov" or similar narrative biographies of complicated historical figures will recognize her approach immediately.
Pass on this one if you are hoping for an aviation-focused celebration of the transatlantic flight. Fleming is interested in the whole man, and the whole man is not comfortable company. Listeners who want strict neutrality on historical ideology will also find Fleming's framing too explicitly positioned. But for anyone who wants to understand how a genuine American pioneer became one of the 20th century's most embarrassing public figures, this audiobook delivers that account with clarity and rigor.
Is this audiobook appropriate for the young adult audience it is marketed toward, given the content about Nazism and eugenics?
Yes. Fleming treats Lindbergh's Nazi sympathies and eugenicist beliefs with historical precision rather than graphic detail. The content is serious and intellectually demanding, not disturbing in a gratuitous way. Teen readers with genuine interest in 20th-century history and the roots of fascism will engage with it productively. The YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award reflects professional consensus on its appropriateness for this audience.
How does Kirsten Potter's narration handle the shifts between Lindbergh's heroic period and the darker chapters of his life in this audiobook?
Potter maintains a steady, authoritative tone throughout. She does not editorialize through vocal performance, the shift in register comes from Fleming's writing rather than Potter dramatizing the moral distance between the early hero and the later ideologue. This restraint serves the material well across the nearly 9.5-hour runtime.
Does this audiobook cover the Lindbergh baby kidnapping in detail?
Yes. The 1932 kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. and the subsequent media trial receive full treatment. Fleming handles the material with gravity appropriate to its severity, and it is one of the audiobook's most compelling sequences. It is not gratuitously graphic, but it does not minimize the tragedy either.
How explicitly does the audiobook draw parallels between Lindbergh's America First politics and contemporary movements?
Quite directly. Fleming states the contemporary resonance explicitly in her framing rather than leaving it to implication. Listeners who prefer their historical biography strictly descriptive and without authorial interpretation should be aware that Fleming makes her analytical position clear from early in the audiobook.
