Dear Wags,

I think of these columns as letters to you. I’m not always the most faithful correspondent, but recently, I was reminded of the power of letter-writing. First, I interviewed the brilliant novelist Claire Messud, and then, I dove into Beyond the Mountains, an upcoming memoir by Deja Vu Prem, which features rich descriptions of missives shared between overseas friends. How exciting it all was, back in the Pleistocene Epoch, getting airmail.

Messud’s latest book, This Strange Eventful History, fictionalizes the journey of her family from 1930s Algeria to contemporary Cambridge, Mass. Since most of the adventure’s heroes have left this world, she was unable to interview them. However, she had an archive of documents, photos, and most importantly, letters to draw from. During our chat, she discussed what made them so special.

“Reading those letters from people whose real-life voices were so known to me—my mother in particular was a wonderful letter writer—allowed me to see aspects of their personalities I didn’t know,” Messud said. “You come to know people in a different way.” 

“I can get on a bit of a soapbox about letter writing,” she continued. “We’ve lost something in no longer writing to each other. It’s about the dignity of a small life, whether or not a person’s life is significant or insignificant. Writing a letter to another person says I care enough about you, and I believe enough in the importance of my life to you, that I will sit down and write to you about my thoughts and actions. Not to post on the Internet, not for a thousand thumbs up, but just for you. And you will have the gift of that letter, an intimacy that no other people will share, because you will know about the cantaloupe that I ate or the bird that I heard singing or the conversation I had at the supermarket, and that’s intimate.”

Prem grew up in poverty in the Philippines, but as a high-school student she began writing to pen pals in the United States. “There was something special about getting a letter from a foreign land,” she writes. “I’d press against my nose envelopes with stamps and seals from different postal regions around the world to smell the possibilities of what the letter went through before reaching my hands.”

It gave her a future: “That a piece of paper in an envelope could travel from country to country set my mind in motion. If a letter could do that, why couldn’t I?”

I remember the possibilities that came with letters from childhood pen pals in faraway Denmark, Kenya, New Zealand, and Japan. It was a thing kids got up to in bygone analog days. In some cases, these exchanges went on for decades. Baked into the exercise was the hope that foreigners could become friends— that one day, they might take an expensive and arduous voyage and finally meet.

There was such romance in that. It depended on the world being vast enough to encompass strangeness and discovery. You couldn’t just blurt and hit send. As Messud says, letter-writing demanded the risk of revelation, not for nameless followers, but in service to more authentic relationships. The small things shared—a slice of cantaloupe, a note of birdsong—were a glimpse into the jewel box of what we once called a private life.

And then it was gone, as if it were just another cheap and disposable product. Whatever you click on next, do know that it wasn’t. Meantime, I’m going to pick up my pen and write someone a note. If I inspire you to do the same, drop me one, too.

Yours ever,

BKP

Taking London by Martin Dugard

June 6 marked the 80th anniversary of D-Day. But before the Allies arrived at that glorious moment, there was the dark summer of 1940, when the United Kingdom seemed to be the last line of defense against the Nazis. Newly installed Prime Minister Winston Churchill vowed to defeat Hitler, but as Londoners dodged doodlebug bombs and took shelter in Tube stations during the Battle of Britain, victory seemed impossible. As Dugard makes clear in this stirring history, Churchill had an ace up his sleeve: Hugh Dowding, head of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command. A visionary who understood aerial defense, radar technology, and military planes, Dowding put his faith in untested pilots who ultimately beat back the Luftwaffe. His heroism still soars.

Getting to Know Death  by Gail Godwin

Godwin is acclaimed for luminous fiction. That work is matched by this moving memoir. In 2022, the 85-year-old, three-time National Book Award finalist broke her neck while gardening. As she lay not quite dying, Godwin decided to confront impending mortality. Meditations on the deaths of loved ones (her husband, father, brother, and a friend), include insights on how she wove loss into novels. Even if you’ve never read a word of Godwin’s prose, this is a gorgeous read. She is willing to look death — and the diminished last days that often precede it — with courage and mordant wit.

Tehrangeles  by Porochista Khakpour

As you read this column, my longer review of Khakpour’s new novel will appear in the Los Angeles Times. Here’s the gist: I devoured this deceptively fluffy tale of four Iranian-American heiresses balancing family pressures with luxe life in the Hollywood Hills. The second-oldest member of this brood, 17-year-old Roxanna-Vanna Milani, is trying to drum up conflict for a reality TV show by holding a huge outdoor bash during the pandemic. Meanwhile, her sisters wrestle with dilemmas that involve wealth, right wing politics, sexuality, and their snooty Persian cat, Pari. Khakpour’s sharp update of Little Women belongs in every pool tote: it’s a real summer splash.