We've all heard the phrase: “give them their flowers now,” an axiom of appreciation that translates as an action. A saying, indeed, that encourages us all not to take people, and the moments life affords us with them, for granted. We must love, and write about this love, now.
Daniel Black's recent novel, Don't Cry For Me (2022), has a similar, and equally important, lesson: write your letters now. In an age of social media—where we endlessly profess the power of tweeting and sharing digital snap shots of our lives—we might be taking for granted the power of the epistolary; yes, the power of writing letters to our loved ones that say, in simple expression, “I love you.”
Don't Cry for Me does just that, though. Throughout the novel, Jacob Swinson, a dying father, offers love letters to his only child, his gay son, Isaac. Jacob Swinson knows that he...