Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

Dear Committee Members,

Over the past twenty-odd years I’ve recommended got only knows how many talented candidates for the Bentham January residency-that enviable literary oasis in the woods south of Skowhegan: the solitude, the pristine cabins, the artistic camaraderie, and those exquisite hand-delivered satchels of apples and cheese… Well, you can scratch all prior nominees and pretenders from your mailing lists, because none is as provocative or as promising as Darren Browles.

Published by The Friday Project, an imprint of Harper Collins in February 2015

Pages - 180

Cover Design by We Are Laura

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I’m always on the lookout for an epistolary novel, so I was excited to discover this one, which recently became a New York Times bestseller.

Set in a cash strapped, arts college in America’s Midwest, the reader finds themselves at the writing desk of Jason Fitger, a professor of creative writing. In his younger years, Jason stood on the verge of a promising literary career, happily married and highly thought of by his peers. Now his glittering future lies shattered at his feet and yet, surprisingly, there is still a smidgeon of pompousness about him.

Through his love of the written word, he demonstrates how miserable and sarcastic he has become, as he writes letter after letter of recommendation for former students and colleagues, some of whom he barely knew. His marriage and following liaisons now a distant memory, after he decided to include his private affairs in his books. As his wife and former mistress gang up on him, he attempts to make amends, by asking for their help in employing his former students. You can’t help but laugh at the irony of his situation as everyone he recommends surpasses him in life, while he trundles on in what he considers a second rate career.

It isn’t surprising when former colleagues and students complain about his recommendations, as each letter is brimming with bitterness. Yet with each letter, you get a real feel for his state of mind and present situation.

This is a really short novel but extremely hilarious. To an aspiring writer, it highlights how fickle and subjective the publishing industry can be. It also shows that a writer is only as good as their last book.  A satirical look at one man’s downward spiral into a midlife crisis through the dying art of letter writing, from within the walls of a crumbling English department.

Ketchup Clouds by Annabelle Pitcher

Pages - 251

Published in January 2013 by Indigo

Dear Mr Harris,

Ignore the blob of red in the top left corner. It's jam not blood, though I don't think I need to tell you the difference. It wasn't your wife's jam the police found on your shoe.

Goodreads Summary

Fifteen-year-old Zoe has a secret—a dark and terrible secret that she can't confess to anyone she knows. But then one day she hears of a criminal, Stuart Harris, locked up on death row in Texas. Like Zoe, Stuart is no stranger to secrets. Or lies. Or murder.
Full of heartache yet humour, Zoe tells her story in the only way she can—in letters to the man in prison in America. Armed with a pen, Zoe takes a deep breath, eats a jam sandwich, and begins her tale of love and betrayal.

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Opening one of Annabel's books is like opening a long awaited Christmas confectionery box, that you know you should eat all at once but temptation gets the better of you and you don't stop until you have scoffed the lot. If you haven't guessed from that, I read the whole book in one sitting, refusing to do anything else.

If that doesn't make you curious to read it, then the following reasons should have you hurdling the Kindle book sales to get hold of a copy of this.

1) It is an epistolary novel written in the form of letters dated over the period of a year. That alone, should make many people want to read it.

2) The narrator is a fifteen year old girl who is writing anonymous letters to a convict on Death Row in America. She is purging her soul  in order to come to terms with the guilt she feels for taking a life.

3) The love triangle is beautiful yet poignant and the author keeps you on your toes all the way through the book. It wasn't until the last couple of chapters that I could finally work out what would happen.

Annabel Pitcher books should definitely now come with a warning as this is the second time she has made me cry. I invested all my emotions into this story, willing it to have a happy ending. I loved the way Zoe thought her crimes were bad enough that the only person who might understand would be a murderer on Death Row. She really had sunk to her lowest point in life. I constantly wanted to hug her as she confessed her sins to a complete stranger.

The book contains excellent sub plots which explore the theme of guilt, which plays a major factor in the main plot.

The characters are so realistic and believable; the author has really captured the teenage voice. Zoe is young at heart and still learning the finer points of love, which causes her to do some rather stupid things. Her letters to Stuart were open and honest, she never left anything unsaid. I did feel she benefited from writing them in the end.

I want to say something about the ending but I feel it would be better not too. I would give too much away.  Come and find me when you have read it and we can discuss it.

I couldn't get enough of this book, I was so impressed that I couldn't work out what had happened until the end, the writing definitely kept me in the dark until the author was ready to reveal the truth.

Seriously if Annabelle Pitcher doesn't win an award with this book, then  I shall scream from the rooftops. I thought her first novel was amazing and I didn't think she could improve on it, but this one just took her writing up to another notch. An utterly brilliant second novel from a very talented author.

 

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

Pages - 203

Published by Methuen Fiction in 2003

Dear Cousin Ella,
New era! Posh-and-pooh! This latest development hasn't inaugurated a new era. It's only shoved us far deeper into the dungeon of Island Medievalism. We shall be wearing burlap and flour sack tomorrow, and lucubrating by candlelight because even light bulbs seem doomed now to join the official list of technological non-essentials. And now this regulation! I am bezide myself!

Firstly before you jump on my back for words spelt incorrectly. Stop! They are supposed to be spelt that way. That is the cleverness of this book. Mark Dunn is a literary genius.

Ella Minnow Pea has the most original use of the English language in a book I have ever seen.  This is an epistolary novel with a difference (and you know how much I love epistolary novels).  Ella Minnow Pea exchanges letters with family, friends and neighbours on the little quiet island of Nollop. The dystopian island is named after Nevin Nollop,the revered author of the sentence 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' and has a statue commemorated to his memory with the sentence placed above with each letter seperately tiled. When the letters begin to fall from the statue, the rulers of the island take that as a sign that that Nollop no longer wants these letters to be used and they become banned in any form of use. That is not too much of a loss for the islanders to begin with, however things deteriorate quickly when they are left with only a couple of letters from the alphabet.

This book is amazing and is so well written , I wanted to kick myself that I hadn't come up with the idea first. Not that my literary offerings would ever come close to Mark Dunn's exceptional skills.  The way Dunn uses the English language to spell words differently is unique. As the letters slowly disappear through the book, you watch as the islanders struggle to cope with the increasing demands made on them to try and communicate without certain letters in the alphabet. As the book progresses, you have to work really hard as a reader, to work out what the letters say.  You feel their desperation as they struggle to be understood. 

By writing the book in letter format, you get to see how the islanders actually cope under the restraint of the disappearing alphabet. I don't think this book would have worked as well if it had been written any other way. 

Nymeth at Things Mean Alot mentioned that it reminded her of 1984 and I could immediately see what she meant. The villager's lives are totally controlled by the rulers of the island and they are harsh leaders to the extreme. The islanders were treated abominably when they chose to disobey the rules or unwittingly forgot that a letter had been banned. Everyone is spying on everyone else, leading to an increased lack of trust amongst a small previously close knit community.  As the islanders realise what they are doing to each other, they begin to see that their only way to freedom is to work together to come up with a solution.

This books shows how one minor issue can escalate and escalate until it causes the downfall of all. A very entertaining read, that appears light hearted and funny on the outside, but covers layers of darker topics such as totalitarianism and censorship underneath.  If you love to see the English language stretched by the imagination, then this is the book for you.