Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham (best short novels of all time txt) 📗

stories with one another? What happens when they don’t?

Consider the portrayal of PTSD in the characters of Max, Jimmy, Liam, and Mark. In what ways do they struggle to adapt to life after witnessing the horrors of war? What scars do they have? And what helps them heal?

When Molly interviews Max about his experience as a prisoner of war, he describes the moment they saw the American planes flying overhead and says, “after four years of surviving, we were finally getting the chance to live again.” What’s the difference between surviving and living?

Max returns from war guilty that he survived when so many others did not. What makes him tell his story to Molly and Ian? What did you make of his decision to remain anonymous?

What role do letters play in the novel?

Discuss the importance of forgiveness. What other characters redeem themselves by the end of the novel? How do the losses of war soften their hearts?

Were you surprised by Richie’s revelation? What reasons does he give for his actions the day of the riot, and after?

In many ways, the novel is an epic love story. What do you think drew Molly and Max together in the first place? And what continues to bind them to one another after so many years?

Consider the title of the novel. What does Letters Across the Sea symbolize?

Enhance Your Book Club

Walk the streets of Toronto with Giles Hodge as he takes viewers through the night of the Christie Pits Riot in “History Happens Here: The Riot at Christie Pits.” https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/video/history-happens-here-riot-christie-pits

Hear from firsthand survivors of the Battle of Hong Kong by watching The Fence, a documentary written and directed by Viveka Melki. In this film, she interviews two POW survivors as well as a young girl who was trapped in Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation. http://thefencedoc.ca/

Or check out Brian McKenna’s 1991 film, Savage Christmas: Hong Kong 1941, on the National Film Board website for a critique of Canada’s involvement in the Pacific Theatre. https://www.nfb.ca/film/savage_christmas_hong_kong_1941/.

In chapter 18, Molly mentions the internment camps where more than 90 per cent of Japanese Canadians living in British Columbia were detained and dispossessed under the War Measures Act. Joy Kogawa was one such girl. Read her award-winning novel, Obasan, to find out more about this dark chapter in Canadian history.

More from the Author

The Forgotten Home Child

At the Mountain's Edge

Come from Away

Promises to Keep

Tides of Honour

About the Author

© BRYGHTON TOWNS

GENEVIEVE GRAHAM is the #1 bestselling author of The Forgotten Home Child, Tides of Honour, Promises to Keep, Come from Away, and At the Mountain’s Edge. She is passionate about breathing life back into Canadian history through tales of love and adventure. She lives near Halifax, Nova Scotia.

GENEVIEVEGRAHAM.COM

@GENGRAHAMAUTHOR

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ALSO BY GENEVIEVE GRAHAM

The Forgotten Home Child

At the Mountain’s Edge

Come from Away

Promises to Keep

Tides of Honour

Somewhere to Dream

Sound of the Heart

Under the Same Sky

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Simon & Schuster Canada

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

The newspaper article on page 191 is reprinted with the permission of The Globe and Mail. The map of Hong Kong was drawn by Captain C.C.J. Bond and appears in C.P. Stacey’s Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War, Volume I.

Copyright © 2021 by Genevieve Graham

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This Simon & Schuster Canada edition April 2021

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Cover design: Elizabeth Whitehead

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Letters across the sea / Genevieve Graham. Names: Graham, Genevieve, author. Description: Simon & Schuster Canada edition. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200293052 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200293079 | ISBN 9781982156633 (softcover) | ISBN 9781982156640 (ebook) Classification: LCC PS8613. R3434 L48 2021 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

ISBN 978-1-9821-5663-3

ISBN 978-1-9821-5664-0 (ebook)