The Letter

What does a man do—when his fundamental beliefs are not only challenged, but shattered?  That is the question Adam Flowers must ask after he learns about The Letter.  Adam is a powerful U.S. Senator, the son—or so he had always believed—of a rich Texas oil family, a man who has been raised to believe that Jesus is the Savior of all men, in general, and the United States of America in particular.  Adam’s conviction that it is his mission to make Christianity the law of the land is matched only by his condescending attitude toward those of other faiths, Jews in particular.  Imagine Adam’s consternation when he learns about The Letter—from a recently deceased Catholic woman who had been a U.S.O. entertainer during the Second World War, and who reveals posthumously that she had offered a night of comfort to an American fighter pilot grieving the loss of his comrades.

Until he reads The Letter, Adam has no idea that the fruit of this woman’s liaison with this man was—himself, given up by his birth mother and claimed by the wife of the rich Texan.   Furthermore, the fighter pilot who is his real father just happens to be a Jewish man, who has gone on to become a distinguished jurist.

What will happen to Adam Flowers when his deepest convictions and most fervent prejudices are challenged by the revelations of his own personal history?    Will he reject the painful truth?  Be shattered by it?  Or will it reach that deeply buried part of him—the younger man who once almost gave up all, for the love a Jewish woman?

Every human being, to one degree or another, faces the questions and dilemmas raised by Jerry Yellin in The Letter.  For his character Adam Flowers, and Adam’s families, known and unknown, the answers are a matter of life and death.