Eva Khatchadourian writes to her estranged husband Frank, trying to solve what went wrong in raising their son Kevin after he kills seven classmates and a teacher in his high school in upstate New York.

"[A] portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable...

"Marcos has just been through a divorce and moved into a new apartment. He feels alienated from his ex-wife, from his daughter, from society; everything feels flat and fake to him. He begins to receive letters at his new address from an anonymous troubled woman who signs off as A. and who clearly believes she is writing to the former tenant, her ex-lover, in the aftermath of a violent heartbreak. Marcos falls under the spell of the manic, hypnotic...

"Life is good on their Pennsylvania Amish farm for newlyweds Vic and Eleanor Lapp--until the day Vic's youngest brother drowns in their pond and Vic turns to alcohol to numb the pain. Things get so bad that Vic loses his job and their marriage is coming apart. Eleanor is desperate to help her husband and writes letters to her friend, Doretta, living in Indiana for advice. The trust Eleanor places in her friend and the gentle words she receives in...

In the late 1950s, over the course of one long lunch at a writer's workshop, Frances and Bernard begin a journey of love and loss. They banter about writing and the workshop's limitations, and, while falling in love, they struggle with the meaning of religion and the nature of friendship. In the end, their relationship is tested to the limits when Bernard suffers a manic episode.

Doretta Schwartz used to be so happy and passed her positive attitude along to friends in several letters she wrote each month. But that all changed the day she learned of her fianc©♭'s death and a heavy weight of depression fell upon her. Feeling empty, she puts away her letter writing and won't even respond to calls from friends. William's twin brother, Warren, is also grieving his loss, while at the same time, trying to be supportive to his...

The tale of four young women university students from Riyadh follows their struggles to navigate the precarious paths between desire, fulfillment, and Islamic tradition while witnessing how the Arab world is being changed by new economic and political realities.

"King Peter Blauner's epic Picture in the Sand is a sweeping intergenerational saga told through a grandfather's passionate letters to his grandson, passing on the story of his political rebellion in 1950s Egypt in order to save his grandson's life in a post-9/11 world. When Alex Hassan gets accepted to an Ivy League university, his middle-class Egyptian-American family is filled with pride and excitement. But that joy turns to shock when they discover...