I write her an email – an email! Not a letter![1] –
telling her that I had read the novel for book club and had really liked it. I
toss in the conversation-starting comment that the guy who always finds
something not to like didn't like the book because he thought the writer was
too hard on the Germans.
It is a World War II novel. About the occupied Channel
Islands. Written from the English perspective.
The Germans are not the heroes here.
(Spoiler for those of you who were not paying attention in
high school: The Germans, although the reasons were complicated, did start
WWII.)
I mention a few other books we had read in book club. Tell
her about the cranky guy's response to those books, one of which was a memoir
by a man who escaped from China. (“We are being too harsh on Mao and the
Cultural Revolution! Who are we to judge?” a comment that got Lynn, the
second-most liberal person in the group, to snap that in this country, people
are not shot or starved or tortured for their political beliefs.)
I am doing it right, right? Will Sly be able to criticize
this letter? Will Doris find bitterness in it?
[1] Have I
mentioned why I prefer to write actual letters to Doris? It’s because a letter
takes longer to answer. An email can inspire an immediate response, which means
I have to reply to her response and then the chain never ends.
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