Hope is Right

My grandmother wrote at least one book. Nothing of hers was published. Oddly, my grandfather wrote a single poem--a parody based on a famous poem--and immediately was published in some collection, somewhere.

Anyway, my grandmother. She once wrote and sent this letter to a publisher:

Enclosed is a short synopsis and the first three chapters of my manuscript, "West Winds of Hope". It is part of me. I felt every word of it.

I was born in western part of Texas. I haven't participated in any wild escapades. You can say, I'm just an ordinary home-maker who loves to write. I'm finishing a murder mystery now.

"West Winds of Hope" would make a great mini-series. It is quite a dramatic story. I hope you will consider it. It is two hundred ninety three typed pages. My manuscript has been edited. It is also registered with copyright.

I belong to several clubs and everyone is ready to purchase my book.

Her book, with its not-at-all cliché title, West Winds of Hope, was based on her own experience. She fails to make this clear in the letter. Regardless, she offers herself, her devotion, and not the book, to the publisher. I read this and hear the desperate plea of an 11 year-old girl begging father for a pony. To her credit, she was concise, and tried to appeal to the man's pocketbook, offering her friends as potential customers, hopefully representatives of the larger population of everyday women yearning to feel drama blow in from the West.

The letter, as much as the book, is autobiographical: "I haven't participated in any wild escapades." No wild escapades. Is she speaking with a pang of regret? Is she apologizing? Confessing? And, then: "You can say, I'm just an ordinary home-maker who loves to write." She turns suddenly, painting herself the underdog in this tale of aspiring author surrendering her fate to the silent whims of this powerful publisher. An underdog. A crazy kid with a dream.

I miss her dearly.