Book Description
It is 1989 and Naiko is working in the Undeliverable MailOffice, a cavernous space that resembles a giant, congested pawnshop. Immersedin things lost and missing, she searches for clues to match undeliverable mailwith addresses, a job that allows her to achieve a semblance of order in adisorderly world. It is a shock, then, when Naiko’s co-worker Andrei, anenigmatic Romanian refugee who has become the unlikely object of Naiko’sfascination, suddenly vanishes.As the novel reveals itself in exquisitely wrought layers thatdrift through time from the Second World War to the fall of communism, Andrei’sstory of his past life in communist Romania becomes an opaque reflection ofNaiko’s own existence, and objects—from the pens hoarded by Naiko’s motherin her retirement home to the personal effects of Jewish women that Andrei’sgrandmother sorts through at Birkenau—become touchstones for memories andmeaning, loss and love. A luminous debut novel from a rising talent of the newgeneration of Canadian writers,
The Letter Opener is a compelling work ofliterary fiction that glows with truth.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
About the Author
KYO MACLEAR is a writer and editor who graduated from theUniversity of Toronto in fine art and art history and received a graduate degreein Cultural Studies. In 1997 she received a Banff Arts Journalism Fellowshipunder chair Michael Ignatieff. Her work has been published in various art andculture magazines, including
Toronto Life, Canadian Art, SaturdayNight, Brick, Mix, Fuse and
This Magazine. She lives in Toronto withsinger and composer David Wall and their two sons.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
