- Shopping Bag ( 0 items )
The Letters
( 1 )
In this remarkable collaboration, New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger combine their unique talents to create a powerfully moving novel of an estranged husband and wife through a series of searching, intimate letters. By way of a correspondence so achingly real you’ll forget it’s fiction, they trace the history of a love affair and of a family before, and after, the moment that changed the course of two people’s journey forever.
Sam and Hadley West are both trying in their own ways to survive after the unthinkable loss of their only son in Alaska. For Sam, a sports journalist, acceptance means an arduous trek by dogsled across the bleak and beautiful arctic wilderness to find the place where Paul died. For Hadley, it means renting a benignly haunted, salt-soaked cottage off the Maine coast where she begins to paint again.
Now, at opposite ends of the country, waiting for their divorce to be finalized, they begin to exchange letters by post, missives filled with longing and truths they’ve never before voiced, as they recall their marriage—its magic moments and its challenges—and begin to rediscover the reasons they fell in love in the first place.
As Sam risks his life to reach the remote crash site, Hadley begins an equally hazardous inner journey to a rendezvous with the mad grief of a mother’s heart. At the place where all else is lost, they will meet again….
From the Hardcover edition.
The bestselling Rice teams up with Monninger in this epistolary novel of an unraveling marriage. Sam and Hadley West separated following the death of their grown son, Paul. Sam is in Laika Star, Alaska, where he is arranging to travel via dog sled to the site where Paul died in a plane crash. Hadley, meanwhile, has moved to an island off the coast of Maine and thinks Sam's trip is a bad idea. Both Sam and Hadley initially come off as unsympathetic (he too self-centered, she too bitter and jaded), but as the letters pile up and they delve deeper into their anguish while sorting out "what [their] marriage means or how it should end," they endear themselves to the reader. The book is unabashedly melodramatic, but readers into the sappy will be reaching for a Kleenex by the end. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.In this epistolary novel by the popular Rice (Last Kiss) and her friend Monninger (Home Waters), Sam West dogsleds across Alaska to the site of the plane crash that killed his only child, Paul, three years earlier. Meanwhile, Sam's wife, Hadley, rents a cabin off the coast of Maine to rekindle her passion for art. Paul had dropped out of Amherst College and was on his way to teach in a remote Inuit village when he died. His death signaled the last breath of the Wests' marriage as well. Or had it been dying long before their son's demise? Sam initiates the correspondence, but soon each spouse comes to view it as a means of being truly honest one last time before their divorce becomes final. As Sam writes, "Something has changed with us.... It makes no sense to name it, though. Not yet. I trust these letters." However Sam's journey alters course and the couple's relationship remodels itself, readers will trust in the privilege of going along for the ride. Though the segmentation of voices leaves one less engaged than one might wish, this is still a satisfying read. Recommended for public libraries. [Prepub Alert, LJ6/1/08.]
—Bette-Lee Fox
Luanne Rice is the author of The Silver Boat, Secrets of Paris, The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners, The Geometry of Sisters, Last Kiss, Light of the Moon, What Matters Most, The Edge of Winter, Sandcastles, Summer of Roses, Summer’s Child, Silver Bells, Beach Girls, and many other New York Times bestsellers. She lives in New York City and Southern California.
Joseph Monninger is the acclaimed author of several works of nonfiction and fiction for teens and adults, including The World as We Know It, and has been awarded two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. A native of New Jersey and one-time Peace Corps volunteer, he is a college professor in New Hampshire where he lives in a converted barn with his wife, Wendy.
Rice began her writing career in 1985 with her debut novel Angels All Over Town. Since then, she has gone on to pen a string of heartwarming bestsellers. Several of her books have been adapted for television, including Crazy in Love, Blue Moon, Follow the Stars Home, and Beach Girls.
Rice was born in New Britain, Connecticut, where her father sold typewriters and her mother, a writer and artist, taught English. Throughout her childhood, Rice spent winters in New Britain and summers by Long Island Sound in Old Lyme, where her mother would hold writing workshops for local children. Rice's talent emerged at a very young age, and her first short story was published in American Girl Magazinewhen she was 15.
Rice later attended Connecticut College, but dropped out when her father became very ill. At this point, she knew she wanted to be a writer. Instead of returning to college, Rice took on many odd jobs, including working as a cook and maid for an exalted Rhode Island family, as well as fishing on a scallop boat during winter storms. These life experiences not only cultivated the author's love and talent for writing, but shaped the common backdrops in her novels of family and relationships on the Eastern seaboard. A true storyteller with a unique ability to combine realism and romance, Rice continues to enthrall readers with her luminous stories of life's triumphs and challenges.
"I take guitar lessons."
While living there, I found out my mother had a brain tumor. She came to Paris to stay with me and have chemotherapy at the American Hospital. She'd never been on a plane before that trip. In spite of her illness, she loved seeing Paris. I took her to London for a week, and as a teacher of English and a lover of Dickens, that was her high point.
After she died, I returned to France and made a pilgrimage to the Camargue, in the South. It is a mystical landscape of marsh grass, wild bulls, and white horses. It is home to one of the largest nature sanctuaries in the world, and I saw countless species of birds. The town of Stes. Maries de la Mer is inspiring beyond words. Different cultures visit the mysterious Saint Sarah, and the presence of the faithful at the edge of the sea made me feel part of something huge and eternal. And all of it inspired my novel Light of the Moon."
During that period I also wrote two linked books—Summer's Childand Summer of Roses. They deal with the harsh reality of domestic violence and follow The Secret Hour and The Perfect Summer When I look back at those books, that time of my life, I see myself as a brave person. Instead of hiding from painful truths, I tried to explore and bring them to the light through my fiction. During that period, I met amazing women and became involved with trying to help families affected by abuse—in particular, a group near my small town in Connecticut, and Deborah Epstein's domestic violence clinic at Georgetown University Law Center. I learned that emotional abuse leaves no overt outward scars, but wounds deeply, in ways that take a long time to heal. A counselor recommended The Verbally Abusive Relationshipby Patricia Evans. It is life-changing, and I have given it to many women over the years."
The Letters by Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger
978-0-553-80741-7
November 6
Dear Hadley,
I made it. I suppose it would be more accurate to say I can see how I will make it in the next few days. I am at the last stage, as far as the planes can take me, at a fishing camp called Laika Star. From here I travel by dogsled, a prospect that both thrills me and fills me with no small amount of fear. You remember how I loved Jack London and read it to Paul when he was ten? Suddenly the prospect of a real mush stands before me, and I am not as intrepid as I believed myself to be. Strange when dreams come face to face with reality. I am to meet the dog driver tomorrow. She will go over my equipment and supply anything else that I need. It should take about ten days, which is a long time to be in the Alaskan bush in winter.
I think of you often here. I'm not sure you would like this country. Alaska is vast and lonely and haunting. It's one thing to hear about it, another to travel it. Most of the state's population lives near Anchorage or Fairbanks. Good roads connect those two cities, but the rest of the state relies on planes. You know all that, of course. I'm sorry if I'm telling you more or less than you need to know. It's been years--back to our courtship, really--since I wrote you a true letter. And I am beyond email, or any electronic communication. Even to call would take a satellite phone, and I suspect we should stand by our decision to take a break for a while to sort out what our marriage means or how it should end. Letters seem like a more reasoned way to communicate. I hope you understand and I hope you'll write back.
I also wanted to say I know you think this trip is a bad idea. I understand. I do. But I have to see where he died, honey. I just do. I don't know if it will change anything, or bring me any peace, but I feel I must do it. I can't go forward until I know more. I want to know how he spent his last days, and what he thought and felt, as least as far as such things are knowable. I'm sorry if my need to do this causes you pain.
On a lighter note, I should mention that you would like my cabin. It is a model of efficiency and low-tech elegance. Everything is fashioned out of logs, like a boy's dream of a Lincoln Log cabin. Martha Stewart meets Sergeant Preston of the Yukon! A Vermont Castings stove sits in one corner, and you can open the doors to the stove and it becomes a fireplace. Beautiful, really. I have it running now and the room smells of cedar and pine and oak. The beds are firm and the linens top quality. The trout and salmon fishing around here is world class, I gather, and they routinely fly in some big names. In the dining room I've seen pictures of Bobby Knight, the famous basketball coach, and George Bush Sr. The proprietor, a man named Gus--shouldn't all proprietors be named Gus?--pointed out a dozen more photographs, but I just nodded and did my best to appear impressed, because clearly I was supposed to know who they were. TV stars, I guess. I didn't recognize any of them, and that simply confirms that I am hopelessly out of date.
I am eager to hear your news, but I will understand if you decide not to write back. I am not trying to gloss over the troubles we've had in our marriage. I understand that we may not be capable of mending our life together. I want you to know that I am sorry for my part in our rifts, and that as hurtful as I have been at times, it was never my intention to do anything but love you. I failed, of course, but I did not mean to fail.
More...
A unique novel that unites the storytelling powers of acclaimed authors Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger, The Letters offers a heartfelt, intimate, and often unflinchingly candid correspondence between two parents in the aftermath of the death of their son, Paul. Compelled by a need he cannot explain, Sam has embarked on a dangerous Alaskan journey to visit the site of Paul’s plane crash. Sam’s wife, Hadley, struggles with the emptiness she feels, while trying to envision a new chapter for herself—developing her skills as a painter and making a new home, away from the one where Paul was raised. Coming to terms with losing Paul, they also discover secrets he had kept, and the burdens they had not been able to help their son carry. As they confront the obstacles that have haunted them and truths about themselves they've never before faced, Sam and Hadley tenderly question whether their relationship, and ultimately, their marriage, will be able to survive—and even grow.
The questions and discussion topics that follow are intended to enhance your reading of Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger’s The Letters. We hope they will enrich your experience of this deeply moving novel.
Anonymous
Posted January 9, 2012
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
Is there any mystery greater than those we love the most?In this remarkable collaboration, New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger combine their unique talents to create a powerfully moving novel of an estranged husband and wife through a series of searching, intimate letters. By way of a correspondence so achingly real you’ll forget it’s fiction, they trace the history of a love affair and of a family before, and after, the moment that changed the course of two people’s journey forever.
Sam and Hadley West are both trying in their own ways to survive after the unthinkable loss of their only son in Alaska. For Sam, a sports ...