\nI’d\nlike to share an excerpt from a letter a reader of the Bonnie and\nClyde book sent to me this week. Two friends sent the reader the book\nand I am grateful for that act because this letter deeply touched me\nand offered fresh insights about the book and its larger story of and\ninstitutionalized (and lucrative) inhumanity unique to America. The\nletter also reminded me how wonderful it is for a writer, any writer,\nto hear from readers, about where the writer’s words landed. I know I\noften write to authors whose books have made an impact on me.\nTypically, you never hear a thing back, but sometimes you do. I\nencourage everyone out there who loves books to communicate with\nauthors and share your appreciation and insights about the work. Even\nconflicts or perceived inadequacies with the book can be shared. Most\nwriters don’t want Valentines from readers, at least I don’t. It\ndoesn’t matter if it’s a book, a poem, a painting, a fort, a song, a\nplay, a craft, a grand meal. If the art and artistry moved you, let\nthe maker of that art know. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear Matt,
I just finished The Bonnie & Clyde Files at my living room table with Glenn Gould playing the last movement of the Mozart Piano Concerto #24 in C minor playing on my stereo; perfect music for the ending of your book and what may come afterwards: a mixture of mysterious foreboding built into the main theme and throughout the movement, nostalgia for past beauty recently experienced simultaneously with Sturm und Drang on either side..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nWhen\nI sent you my first email that I was “enjoying” your book,\nI immediately felt that was an inadequate and inappropriate word to\nuse, although I was mostly thinking at that moment about your\nadventures with Bonnie & Clyde, the beautiful river sights, the\nformal structure of your book which is so powerful and profound as it\nproceeds, and the clarity and concise skill of your perceptions put\ninto words, all of which I continued to admire more and more as I\nread deeper into the book. I must have been at around page 52 at that\ntime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nNow that I\njust finished it, reading this afternoon from around page 71\nto the end, I have deep emotions and feelings that have very little\nto do with “enjoyable,” but I can still admire the climax\nyou so skillfully brought towards the end, like a dramatic symphony\nthat both recapitulates itself and goes beyond what has come before\nto leave the listener, here reader, with its ending, at a peak of\nemotional, intellectual, and spiritual intensity that only resolves\nitself through a vow to continue onward as a more informed spiritual\nhuman being, much more aware of injustices and atrocities occurring\nin our natural and social environment, determined to take actions, or\nadopt appropriate inactions, to make our beautiful miraculous world a\nbetter place\u2014I can say this of few books I’ve ever read, but know\nyour are a true brother in spirit along with Walt (Whitman) and\nHesse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’d like to share an excerpt from a letter a reader of the Bonnie and Clyde book sent to me this week. Two friends sent the reader the book and I am grateful for that act because this letter deeply touched me and offered fresh insights about the book and its larger story of and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[203,5,28],"tags":[693,1011,535,6,9,694,490,691,1013],"class_list":["post-5093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bonnie-and-clyde-files","category-meditations","category-writing","tag-bonnie-and-clyde-files","tag-dog-book","tag-dog-writing","tag-matt-love","tag-nestucca-spit-press","tag-oregon-books","tag-oregon-literature","tag-oregon-memoir","tag-oregon-publishing","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5093"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5098,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions\/5098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}