Synopses & Reviews
From the author of A Book of Ones Own and
Stolen Words comes a delightful and wide-ranging investigation of the art of letter writing.
Yours Ever explores the offhand masterpieces dispatched through the ages by messenger, postal service, and BlackBerry. Thomas Mallon weaves a remarkable assortment of epistolary riches into his own insightful and eloquent commentary on the circumstances and characters of the worlds most intriguing letter writers. Here are Madame de Sévignés devastatingly sharp reports from the court of Louis XIV, F. Scott Fitzgeralds tormented advice to his young daughter, the besotted midlife billets-doux of a suddenly rejuvenated Woodrow Wilson, the casually brilliant spiritual musings of Flannery OConnor, the lustful boastings of Lord Byron, the cries from prison of Sacco and Vanzetti. Along with the confessions and complaints and revelations sent from battlefields, frontier cabins, and luxury liners, a reader will find Mallon considering travel bulletins, suicide notes, fan letters, and hate mail-forms as varied as the human experiences behind them.
Yours Ever is an exuberant reintroduction to a vast and entertaining literature-a book that will help to revive, in the digital age, this glorious lost art.
Review
"[T]here is no denying the love that undergirds the author's labor or the seemingly laborless way in which he calls these dead pages back to life....What kind of life, though? That's the question that began niggling at me the moment I closed this delightful book. Yours Ever is conceived as a museum for a lost art, and it is not hard to see Mallon as the docent in the cardigan sweater, ushering us into each room and then sending us off into the gloaming of modernity." Louis Bayard, The Wilson Quarterly (read the entire )
Synopsis
From the author of
A Book of One's Own and
Stolen Words comes a delightful and wide-ranging investigation of the art of letter writing.
Yours Ever explores the offhand masterpieces dispatched through the ages by messenger, postal service, and BlackBerry. Thomas Mallon weaves a remarkable assortment of epistolary riches into his own insightful and eloquent commentary on the circumstances and characters of the world's most intriguing letter writers. Here are Madame de Sevigne's devastatingly sharp reports from the court of Louis XIV, F. Scott Fitzgerald's tormented advice to his young daughter, the besotted midlife billets-doux of a suddenly rejuvenated Woodrow Wilson, the casually brilliant spiritual musings of Flannery O'Connor, the lustful boastings of Lord Byron, the cries from prison of Sacco and Vanzetti. Along with the confessions and complaints and revelations sent from battlefields, frontier cabins, and luxury liners, a reader will find Mallon considering travel bulletins, suicide notes, fan letters, and hate mail-forms as varied as the human experiences behind them.
Yours Ever is an exuberant reintroduction to a vast and entertaining literature — a book that will help to revive, in the digital age, this glorious lost art.
Synopsis
Mallon offers a delightful and wide-ranging chronicle of the art of letter-writing that explores the offhand masterpieces dispatched through the ages by the likes of Scott Fitzgerald, Flannery O'Connor, Lord Byron, and others.
About the Author
THOMAS MALLON is the author of seven novels, including Henry and Clara, Dewey Defeats Truman and Fellow Travelers. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and The Atlantic Monthly. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Table of Contents
Introduction ONE Absence
TWO Friendship
THREE Advice
FOUR Complaint
FIVE Love
SIX Spirit
SEVEN Confession
EIGHT War
NINE Prison
Selected Bibliography
Index