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It started with a letter …
It’s hard for Carol to admit her failings. Unhappy in her marriage and with a teenage daughter who will barely converse with her, she feels trapped. So she puts pen to paper; well, it seems less daunting than airing her thoughts aloud. She isn’t expecting anyone to read her letters, so she doesn’t address them. Instead, she marks them with a smiley face and pops them in the post box.
Albert’s retirement day at Royal Mail looms and he’s given one final task; organise the ‘lost letters’ that have been piling up in a room behind the sorting machine. Amongst the letters addressed to Santa, he arrives at one with a smiley face drawn in place of an address. Albert opens the letter, unaware that in doing so his world would never be the same again.
It’s hard for Carol to admit her failings. Unhappy in her marriage and with a teenage daughter who will barely converse with her, she feels trapped. So she puts pen to paper; well, it seems less daunting than airing her thoughts aloud. She isn’t expecting anyone to read her letters, so she doesn’t address them. Instead, she marks them with a smiley face and pops them in the post box.
Albert’s retirement day at Royal Mail looms and he’s given one final task; organise the ‘lost letters’ that have been piling up in a room behind the sorting machine. Amongst the letters addressed to Santa, he arrives at one with a smiley face drawn in place of an address. Albert opens the letter, unaware that in doing so his world would never be the same again.
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Reviews
Set against the bleak backdrop of London suburbia and blackly comic, this is an easy read and a gentle tale of the everyday but no less moving for it, perhaps because of it.
A keenly observed book about loneliness and longing ... Winter makes the reader not only smile, but pause and, in the final line, shed an appropriate tear about what it means to be given a second chance.
'Winter's style is chatty and his wit gentle, but he has a sharp enough edge to avoid sentimentality.'
This is an easy, if poignant, read with delicate (and sometimes more biting) touches of humour
Witty, off-beat and moving ... Tom Winter delights with a deadpan turn of phrase.
'Original and surprising ... it left me glowing.'
'I laughed out loud ... this book's one to keep.'
A touching tale, full of pathos and laugh-out-loud moments.
This is a black comedy full of wit and deadpan humour...Spiky and charming, bleak and heart-warming at the same time