[close] A June wedding sets the scene for Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s bestselling novel, Dearly Beloved. The ceremony is a great moment during which the “gathered together” survey not just this couple, this occasion, but their own lives, hopes, and fears. As the family and guests follow the familiar marriage service, they are stirred to new insights—on love, on marriage, and on all the stages of development involved. For the young and eager bridesmaid and best man, marriage still lies ahead; but for the mothers of the bride and groom, and for friends and relatives, the sight of the young couple and the words of the minister evoke more troubling thoughts and deeper questions. Anne Morrow Lindbergh wisely chose the framework of a wedding as a meditation on togetherness to contrast the questions she contemplated on solitude in her bestselling classic Gift from the Sea. The novel's structure also gave her scope for her reflections—some of them autobiographical—and intuitions about the most crucial of human relationships, reflections she calls “a theme and variations.” This classic book, first published in 1962 and long out of print, illuminates the truths behind marriage, not with easy optimism, but with perception, compassion, candor, and courage.
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