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FLYOVER LIVES: A Memoir. By Diane Johnson. New York: Viking. 2014.
Describing the arrival of Diane Johnson's ancestors from Europe to the Midwest, tracing her passage from childhood through adolescence to adulthood, and revealing glimpses of the incidents that led to her current transatlantic personal and professional life, Flyover Lives consists of the elements of history, autobiography, and travel.
"Americans are naïve and indifferent to history" (3), the remark made by John- son's French hostess, fueled her curiosity about her family history, and she discovered in the papers of her great-great grandmother Catherine Anne Perkins Martin that in 1711 her forefathers, the brothers René and François Cossé, had been captured by the English on board a ship en route to Canada. Subsequently, René Cossé (Ranna Cossitt) remained in Connecticut, refusing to...