The plot turns on several convenient coincidences and lags a bit in the middle. It would spoil the plot to say much more, other than it shifts back and forth between two romances complicated by World War I and World War II. The novel shifts to 1940 and introduces a new character, a young woman in England when German bombs are falling, writing her mother in Edinburgh. The poet, who eventually discloses she's all of 24, seems wiser and more worldly than her fan from Illinois, even as she confesses she's never been off Skye, "a wild, pagan, green place of such beauty that I couldn't imagine being anywhere else."Īfter 10 pages, Brockmole introduces the beginnings of a family mystery. Dunn," not Miss Dunn, their correspondence takes on a growing intimacy, revealing their dreams and doubts and secrets.
She adores Walter Scott.Īnd even after she notes, "It's Mrs. Poet Elspeth Dunn replies to David Graham, saying that his letter caused a stir in her tiny post office, where everyone gathered to watch her read "my first letter from a 'fan,' as you Americans would say."Īn increasingly lively correspondence is born, propelled by a mutual love of books. The novel opens in 1912 when a restless and cocky pre-med student at the University of Illinois mails a letter to "express my admiration" to a Scottish poet on the Isle of Skye. More casual and romantic readers will simply fall for Brockmole's fictional correspondents. Graduate students might add that it's "polylogic," using letters written by three or more of the novel's characters. It's told through letters written between 19.Įnglish majors would call it an epistolary novel. It's a sweeping and sweet (but not saccharine) love story. The lovers in Jessica Brockmole's debut novel, Letters from Skye (* * * stars out of four), mostly communicate the old-fashioned way: hand-written letters sent with a stamp. Or perhaps it would have just sped up their romantic tragedy. That led me to wonder if Romeo and Juliet would have fared better had they been able to text.
The "simple beauty" of text messaging is changing the culture of dating, my colleague at USA TODAY, Sharon Jayson, recently reported.
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