you don’t read other folk’s letters. postcards maybe.

"the sidmouth letters" (jane gardam, 1980)

Phil Richards via Wikimedia Commons

The piece of writing I’ve talked about the most this year in “real life” isn’t a bit of non-fiction or a newsletter or whatever. It wasn’t even published this year. It’s a short story by Jane Gardam called “The Sidmouth Letters.”¹ I actually liked this short story so much that—this is true—I briefly considered launching a “book club” on here basically to manipulate other people into reading it. I didn’t really have any other ideas about what a book club would do, which is one reason I did not do this. I liked it so much that I went to a wedding where I think I found myself pitching it to three separate people, like I’d move onto the next conversation, there’d be a lull, and then I’d be like

…sooooOOOOOOOooooOOOOooooo…

The reason a “book club” is superior to what I am about to do, however, is because a big part of what makes …