Poignant, honest, and heartfelt letters to a sister who perished in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
 
Lisa McNair was born in 1964, one year after her older sister, Denise, was murdered in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Dear Denise is a collection of forty letters from Lisa addressed to the sister she never knew, but in whose shadow of sacrifice and lost youth she was raised. These letters offer an intimate look into the life of a family touched by one of the most heinous tragedies of the Civil Rights Movement.

Written in a genuine, accessible, familiar, and easy-to-read voice, Lisa’s letters apprise her late sister of all that has come to pass in the years since her death. Lisa considers her own challenges and accomplishments as a student in remarkably different—and very racially complex—schools; the birth of their baby sister, Kim; their father’s election to the Alabama legislature; her evolving sense of faith and place, and sometimes lack thereof, within the Black church; her college experiences; and her own sense of self as she’s matured into adulthood. She reveals some of the family’s difficulties and health challenges, and shares some of their joys and celebrations.

The letters are accompanied by 29 black-and-white photographs, most of them from the McNair family collection, many of them taken by her father, a professional photographer who documented the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama both before and after Denise’s murder. An unswervingly candid, gentle, and nuanced book, Dear Denise is a testament to one singular life lived bravely and truthfully (if sometimes confusedly or awkwardly), during decades of bewildering social change and in the shadow of one life never fully lived.
 

Ruth Larson saved nearly 700 letters she and her husband Bob exchanged during World War II. Opening the box while his mother lay dying, her son Bruce expected to find commonplace details of his parents’ early life together. He instead discovered a story of deception, obsession, and betrayal.

Reading through the letters, he is drawn into his parents’ courtship amid the hardships of separation and war. Beyond the tumultuous romance, Larson finds that he barely recognizes his father, whom he knew only as distant and impassive. He uncovers shocking truths about his mother, Ruth, whom family lore had pigeonholed as sweetly pious.

At the time of the letters, Bob is a young Coast Guard clerk fighting off depression with thoughts of his dream girl back home. Back in Minnesota, Ruth passes the days adrift in romantic fantasies and liaisons with local admirers. Bob’s suspicions about Ruth and his obsession with her from afar threaten the young man’s fragile hold on his sanity, but he will not give her up. Decades later, their son comes to feel a tenderness for both his parents and to understand how their losses, fears, and reluctance can transform and refashion family bonds.