Letter to My Daughter -George Bishop

Letter to My Daughter
George Bishop
Ballantine, Jan 25 2010, $13.00
ISBN: 9780345515995

Laura the mom and Elizabeth the teenage daughter have a major argument over boys. Raging the fifteen years old Liz races out of the house after her frustrated mom slaps her. Upset and worried, Laura decides to write a letter to her daughter about how she as a teenage girl became a woman.

In 1969 in a small town Louisiana high school Laura and impoverished Cajun Tim Prejean were dating over the objection of her parents. Knowing their daughter rebelled against their authority with Tim as a token, they transferred Laura to a strict private Catholic school Sacred Heart for girls only. In spite of derision from her classmates over seeing a Cajun, Laura and Tim continued to exchange letters even after he is drafted and sent to Vietnam. However, she begins to question their relationship though she does not want to hurt her first love.

Putting aside the problem with a mom writing a novella sized letter while her daughter has just ran away in anger, fans will enjoy this mother-daughter relationship drama as Laura looks back at her teen years. Laura is an interesting protagonist as she wonders if she waited to late to tell her story starting with Tim and her parents sending her to school to end their relationship. Readers will enjoy Laura’s pearls of wisdom that she prays she can apply to her relationship with her daughter starting with simply two way communicating.

Harriet Klausner