The Actual Letters and Stories

I realize these scans are virtually impossible to read. They are written in pencil for the most part and very old. The bottom exmple from 1970 is 39 years old. Laura's letter is probably older still. But at least you get a sense of what we were up to.


Laura was still living in Ketchikan, Alaska, when she wrote this. Being as she mentions the freshman event I would estimate this was written in 1968, but I can't be sure. They did in fact move to Ann Arbor, Michigan her father attending University of Michigan's graduate school. We each got to visit the other since I was in Chicago at the time.


The envelope for the following story. The date is April 1970. It was about this time or soon after, I believe, that Laura's father, mother and older brother were involved in a car accident. Her father was killed and her brother so seriously injured that he still suffers the effects. Laura was in college, having graduated early from high school. She was going through a great deal and one day simply packed up all my letters and stories and mailed them to me. I was devastated, but I did not stop writing. I had my own issues, my father having remarried a woman who left him after six weeks. I was now the sole female parent of my sister, ten years my junior. I smudged out Laura's last name on the envelope because she is a quite private person and prefers only to be known by her first name.


This story line, needless to say, never made it into the book though it is actually the story line that got me started rewriting the old stories. I ran into a scene of seduction that ended sooner than I expected, so, reasoning that I had now had sex, I could write about it, I took up the virtual pen again . I can tell you right now that the Juliana involved here does not make it into the novel. Lawrence never betrays Josephine's trust. I will let you read the novel to see if Josephine ever did.