Dead Letters from Paradise by Ann McMan is a historical mystery that’s sure to keep you guessing.
It’s 1960 and EJ Cloud manages the Dead Letter Office in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She shuffles between work, home, and the local medicinal garden where she volunteers. With no husband, siblings, and her parents both dead, EJ’s main social interaction is with her lone colleague in the DLO.
One day, the woman who manages the medicinal garden hands EJ a stack of letters that had been sent there, all addressed to someone they’ve never heard of. Although the letters are not technically “dead,” since they were delivered to the address on the envelope, EJ accepts the task of returning the letters to their author. She pursues her mission with a fervor she hasn’t had since she left college to take care of her sick mother more than two decades prior.
EJ’s investigation requires her to get to know her neighbours, including a 10-year-old firecracker named Harrie and two women who are “roommates.” EJ learns more than she could imagine while she tries to track down the elusive letter writer — especially about herself.
Pros And My Favourite Parts
My favourite part is the whole damn thing. Honestly, I think you should skip to the buy button, ignore everything I have to say about the book, and just go read or listen to it, because it’s so wonderful. That said, some of you want an actual review, so a review you will get. (But seriously, just go buy it. You’ll thank me later.)
Dead Letters From Paradise is one of the best character studies I’ve read in a very long time. When it starts, EJ is still living by her mother’s unwritten rules, even though she’s 45 years old. Her life is incredibly small and to say she’s stuck in a rut is an understatement. And yet, we don’t see EJ stay in that smallness for long. She’s handed the letters on the first page, which is the most pivotal moment of her life and it continuously grows from there.
The letters themselves are at the centre of the mystery. Who wrote them? And who is the Mary Ann Evans that they’re addressed to? I formed theories early on about who the intended recipient is and I was dead wrong about all of them. I was hooked by EJ’s dogged pursuit of the writer, because her obsession is so compelling, and I gasped when I learned what the letters are all about.
Because this story is all about EJ and her shift from living according to the programming installed by her mother to learning how to live authentically, the first-person narration is perfect. I know first-person isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I can’t imagine a better way to tell this story without that full view into EJ’s interior. We get insight into her every thought and feeling as she wakes up and notices the civil rights movement around her, as well as when she starts to understand that others perceive her as interesting and beautiful.
Speaking of the side characters, each is fascinating and helps EJ understand a different aspect of herself. Harrie is a dynamic girl who’s had to grow up fast, because she’s being raised by a single dad. She and EJ form a special bond that’s akin to an aunt/niece relationship, which brings fun and wonder into EJ’s life and stability into Harrie’s. Faye-Marian owns the home behind EJ’s and rents out an apartment to Harrie and her father, as well as one to Inez, a local English professor that Faye-Marian is in a romantic relationship with. Although it takes EJ much longer to clue into the nature of their relationship than it’ll take any contemporary reader, Inez and Faye-Marian help EJ understand herself and offer the kind of warm, judgment-free friendship EJ hasn’t had in decades — if ever. Harrie, Inez, and Faye-Marian become EJ’s found family and I was thrilled with how much more vibrant her life is by the end, thanks to their presence in her life.
Lottie is especially important, as she’s EJ’s sole colleague in the DLO, which makes her EJ’s only real companion for years. It becomes rapidly obvious that Lottie’s been nudging EJ for ages to put herself out there and see what happens. I may have snort-laughed when Lottie references Spring Fire (I totally did), showing that she knows why EJ never married, even if EJ hasn’t acknowledged it to herself. Most importantly, Lottie is a Black woman and I appreciated that she doesn’t let EJ off the hook when EJ tries to apologize for not noticing racism sooner; this conversation happens after EJ finds Harrie sitting with Lottie’s son at a lunch counter sit-in and joins them. Lottie’s refusal to give absolution while telling EJ to just do better is important and appears to be another pivotal moment for EJ.
If you’re at all inclined to listen to books, I highly recommend getting this one in audio. As always, Christine Williams’s voice is the perfect pairing for Ann McMan’s words.
Cons And Heads Up
None for me.
Some people may not love that EJ doesn’t do a lot more on the anti-racism front, especially because she starts with a casually racist perspective. For example, she wonders why people can’t be happy with the status quo when she reads about protests across the South. I wasn’t as bothered, however, because the story takes place over the span of less than a month. In that time, EJ comes to an awareness that the status quo is wrong and takes solid first steps in what appears to be the beginning of her allyship journey. I’d be curious to see how far she goes over the years, because I have the sense that she’s only just barely gotten started.
The Conclusion
Some of you are probably wondering “but what about the romance, Tara?” because of the misconception that every lesfic book is a romance novel. Dead Letters from Paradise is not a traditional romance. That said, there is a lot of love within the covers, as EJ builds her found family and even learns how to love herself (because as the great RuPaul says, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else?”). There’s also a hint at the end that EJ might find another kind of love and it’s so perfect that I literally put my hand over my heart and gasped.
Get this book. It’s beautifully crafted with a brilliant, layered character arc. It also contains a message that we can’t ignore: we all live in community and need to step up and do better when we know something is wrong. Read it, love it, and tell a friend, because these days, we all need to love ourselves and do right by each other.
Excerpt from Dead Letters from Paradise by Ann McMan
“What are these?” I asked.
Evelyn shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Dead letters, I suppose.”
“But they were meant to be delivered here.” I held one of the letters up. “To the gardens.”
“Maybe so. But there’s never been anyone here by that name.”
I quickly flipped through the stack. All six of the letters were addressed to Mary Ann Evans.
“No one named Mary Ann Evans has ever worked here?” I asked her.
“No.”
“Could she have been a volunteer?”
“Not during my tenure—and I’ve been the master gardener here for nearly twelve years.”
It wasn’t usual for us to receive letters back into the postal system once they’d been delivered, but this did appear to be an odd circumstance.
“I suppose I can take these in and try to figure out what to do with them.” I turned one over. No return address. “Did you try refusing delivery?”
“Of course not.” Evelyn’s response was curt and delivered with the same dispatch she used to snap dead blooms off late-season plants. It was clear she was losing patience with our conversation and wanted to be done with the matter. She had already pulled off her gloves and was busy clearing bits of soil from beneath her fingernails. “No mail is ever delivered here. Anything intended for the garden gets sorted in the administrative office for Old Salem and dropped into a box for me. I only pick it up every couple of months, because there’s rarely anything of consequence. Seed catalogs, mostly. Or sometimes I get requests for tips on growing certain kinds of herbs. Those?” She gestured at the flat box of letters. “Nothing like that has ever been sent here before. At least, not that I know of.”
“I’m not sure what to do with them, either.”
“Isn’t that your job?”
Evelyn’s directness made me feel guilty—like I’d been trying to shirk responsibility for taking the letters off her hands. “Well, technically,” I said. “But letters aren’t normally returned to us after being delivered.”
“Judging by the dates on the postmarks, these have been arriving about once every ten days. So, the sender must be unfamiliar with your policies. Either way, I don’t have time to bother with these.” She turned on her heel and started back toward our small potting shed. “Do whatever you want with them.”
I watched her walk away.
Just super.
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Bits and Bobs
ISBN number: 978-1612942353
Publisher: Bywater Books
Audiobook Publisher: Audible Studios
Narrator: Christine Williams
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