The Letters is a novel by American writers Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger. The novel was first printed in September 2008 in hardcover by Bantam Dell, a division of Random House, Inc. [1] The Letters is a fiction, romantic novel.
The Letters tells a story of Sam and Hadley West who write each other a series of highly emotional letters during the course of their separation. The letters outline the course of their relationship before and after the death of their son in an airplane crash. [2]
While Sam and Hadley are thousands of miles apart, waiting for their divorce to come through, they begin to exchange letters. [3] The letters start out with Sam and Hadley West trying to come to terms with the death of their only child and son Paul. Sam believes that going to Alaska and taking the dangerous trek by plane and dog sled to see the place where Paul died will help him come to terms with his son's death. [3] Hadley rents a cottage, haunted by the previous owner, off the coast of Maine in a town called Monhegan. [4] Hadley chose Monhegan because she felt like she needed to get away and she liked the idea that it was an artist's colony in the summer. [4] Hadley came to Monhegan in October, so all the artist's were already leaving. Hadley liked the desolation of the island because she could be left alone to grieve in solitude. While in Monhegan she began to paint again. [4] The letters consist of the feelings and worry that they were unable to say during their marriage. The letters allow the West's to reconnect and become the family that would have been if their son had lived. [3] As Sam is on his journey to the crash site he experiences many dangers and is constantly risking his life. Sam's wife Hadley is on a journey of the soul to rid her of the grief she carries from the death of her only child. [5]
Sam West is the husband of Hadley West and the father of Paul West. Sam goes to Alaska to try and come to terms with the death of his son. [2] Sam at first took jobs faraway, so that he would not have to deal with his son's death and his wife's grief. Sam decides to take a trip to Alaska so that he can see where his son died. [4] As Sam takes this trip he is also trying to save his marriage. Sam begins writing letters to Hadley in hopes that she can see why he took the trip. [4]
Hadley West is the wife of Sam West and mother of Paul West. [4] Hadley broke down after Paul's death. She started drinking heavily and having an affair. Hadley realizes her destructive ways after she is caught by Sam. Hadley rents a cottage of the coast of Maine, so that she can come to terms with Paul's death. [4] Hadley starts to paint again while at the cottage and finds inspirations for her to stay sober. [4]
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and sportsman. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his adventurous lifestyle and his public image brought him admiration from later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short-story collections, and two nonfiction works. Three of his novels, four short-story collections, and three nonfiction works were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.
Random Harvest is a 1942 film based on the 1941 James Hilton novel of the same title, directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Claudine West, George Froeschel, and Arthur Wimperis adapted the novel for the screen, and received an Academy Award nomination. The novel keeps the true identity of Paula/Margaret a secret until the very end, something that would have been impossible in a film, where characters’ faces must be seen. This meant that the movie had to take a very different approach to the story. The film stars Ronald Colman as a shellshocked, amnesiac World War I soldier, and Greer Garson as his love interest.
Shirley Hardie Jackson was an American writer, known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, which spanned over two decades, she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories.
Slaughterhouse-Five, also known as The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a science fiction infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1969. It follows the life and experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years to his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant during World War II, to the post-war years, with Billy occasionally traveling through time. The text centers on Billy's capture by the German Army and his survival of the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, an experience which Vonnegut himself lived through as an American serviceman. The work has been called an example of "unmatched moral clarity" and "one of the most enduring antiwar novels of all time".
Sam Youd, known professionally as Christopher Samuel Youd, was a British writer, best known for science fiction under the pseudonym John Christopher, including the novels The Death of Grass, The Possessors, and the young-adult novel series The Tripods. He won the Guardian Prize in 1971 and the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1976.
Louis Dearborn L'Amour was an American novelist and short-story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels ; however, he also wrote historical fiction, science fiction, non-fiction (Frontier), as well as poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into films. L'Amour's books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death almost all of his 105 existing works were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".
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Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 American submarine science fiction adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. The film is about a submarine crew who are shrunk to microscopic size and venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain. Kleiner abandoned all but the concept of miniaturization and added a Cold War element. The film starred Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O'Brien, Donald Pleasence, and Arthur Kennedy.
Looking for Alaska is John Green's first novel, published in March 2005 by Dutton Juvenile. Based on his time at Indian Springs School, Green wrote the novel as a result of his desire to create meaningful young adult fiction. The characters and events of the plot are grounded in Green's life, while the story itself is fictional.
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine, with funding from Grosset & Dunlap and Curtis Publishing Company. It has since been purchased several times by companies including National General, Carl Lindner's American Financial and, most recently, Bertelsmann; it became part of Random House in 1998, when Bertelsmann purchased it to form Bantam Doubleday Dell. It began as a mass market publisher, mostly of reprints of hardcover books, with some original paperbacks as well. It expanded into both trade paperback and hardcover books, including original works, often reprinted in house as mass-market editions.
Elizabeth Hadley Richardson was the first wife of American author Ernest Hemingway. The two married in 1921 after a courtship of less than a year, and moved to Paris within months of being married. In Paris, Hemingway pursued a writing career, and through him Hadley met other expatriate British and American writers.
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The Visitor is the fourth book in the Jack Reacher series written by Lee Child. It was published in 2000 by Bantam in the United Kingdom. In the United States; the book was released under the title Running Blind. It is written in the second and third person. In the novel, retired military police officer Jack Reacher must race against time to catch a sophisticated serial killer who is murdering a group of female soldiers, but leaving no forensic evidence.
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A Right to Die is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1964.
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