A lovely little book about two people trying to heal from the worst thing that can happen to a parent, the loss of their child. With a schism in their marriage, the divorce in motion, each sets out to try to survive their grief. Sam makes his way by dog sled into an Alaskan winter to see the site where the plane that took his son when down. Hadley retreats to an island off of the coast of Maine and picks up her paintbrush. What begins as a letter Sam writes to Hadley to tell her he arrived at his starting point in Alaska turns into a stream of correspondence in which each begins to talk about their feelings, the pain of losing their son, remembrances of when they met and an examination of their marriage. ( )

It's a creative concept for a storyline: two parents torn apart by the accidental death of their son. The father (Sam) is obsessed with seeing the place where his son (Paul) perished. Driven by that obsession he makes a pilgrimage into the Alaskan wild where his son's plane crashed. The mother (Hadley) artistic and alcoholic, find herself in equal solitude on Monhegan Island, a tiny (586 acre) island off the coast of Maine that really does exist. These parents are as far away from each other physically as their marriage is spiritually. Their story consists of letters written on the brink of divorce - volleying blame back and forth. Through these letters, not only does the anguish of losing Paul wring itself out, but histories are revealed. Grief is only a fraction of the bigger picture. ( )

The Letters is the story of Sam and Hadley, an estranged married couple who have recently lost their son, Paul. Hadley has relocated to an artist’s colony in Maine while she awaits the settlement of their divorce. Sam has traveled to Alaska to stand on the ground where his son took his last breaths; Paul was working for Teach for America and had been assigned to teach in a remote Alaskan town when his plane got caught in a snowstorm and crashed. Though Hadley can’t understand it, Sam feels the need to see the place where his beloved son died.

The entire book is written as letters between Sam and Hadley. As their letters become more honest and open, they reveal hurts and scars they have been carrying around. They reminisce of earlier times and slowly begin to heal their relationship while coming to terms with Paul’s death.

While The Letters is an honest look at grief, it is a bit overemotional and melodramatic. It’s sappy, but then again, the subject matter is a difficult one to deal with. It is difficult to achieve that balance between poignancy and cheesiness; unfortunately, this book doesn’t find it well.

An epistolary novel is interesting to read; there is no omniscience. All the information the reader receives comes straight from either Hadley or Sam and is limited by what they want to tell one another. However, some parts are a bit awkward. It is difficult to imagine that people would actually write sex scenes into their letters; it is obvious that these scenes were inserted for the reader’s enjoyment. They just don’t really fit into the story. It is interesting to read the variation in voice between Hadley and Sam. Using two narrators, one male and one female, to write each voice is a choice that pays off.

The Letters is a short, sweet novel about the nature of grief and its negative effects. While it isn’t perfectly written, it still has a nice message that Luanne Rice fans will most likely enjoy.

Originally posted at Curled Up with a Good Book and reprinted at S. Krishna's Books ( )

A couple is devastated by the death of their son in an Alaskan plane crash 3 years earlier. As they await for the finalization of their divorce in the wake of this tragedy, they each go to a seculded place to finally come to terms with their son's death. She goes to a small house on a Maine island for the seclusion it affords as fall changes to winter. He goes to Alaska to trek through the snow on a dog sled to find the crash site where his son died. They begin to write letters to each others - his tentative at first, hers short and angry. But then they begin to confess their deepest thoughts to each other as they go through their own healing processes, both apart and, at the same time, brought together through their lettes. ( )

A real tear jerker - I'm a sucker for these things. Wonderful book by Rice - a couple on the edge of divorce, brought back together by letters. ( )