I went to two weeks of summer camp. The camp was a sleepaway camp and the subject was electrics and engineering, which I like OK. The daytime at camp was good. We did a lot of interesting projects, not stupid stuff, but things with electricity and real tools. We built a model hotel with a working elevator. At night it was pretty bad. I didn’t sleep well there. I think I don’t sleep well unless I’m at my own house, and Dr. Oliver said that’s part of it, but I’m not sure what he means by that. There were some other weird kids like me, but I got made fun of a lot. One morning I put my shoes on and they were wet. I smelled urine, so I knew what had happened. I tried to dry them out with the hand dryer in the bathroom, but that took a long time, so then I missed breakfast, and then I was trying to eat some cereal in the dining hall quickly, but it made me late to one of our sessions so I didn’t get to pick my partner, so then I had a freakout. I hadn’t had one the whole time, but then I did, so the rest of the time I knew everyone was looking at me and if they hadn’t already known I was weird, now they did. That made me feel embarrassed. I know you will tell me I should tell my parents, but I am not going to. By the way, this whole paragraph is a stone.
My birthday is August 10, which you know, and I’ll be 14. Instead of having a party, my dad is going to take the day off and give me an iPhone, take me to the Spy Museum and then for cheeseburgers for dinner. I go back to school on Monday, August 25, which I dread.
Warm regards,
Harry Landy
Kazuo Ishiguro
?Peter Straus / RCW Literary Agency
20 Powis Mews
London W11 1JN
UNITED KINGDOM
August 6, 2014
Dear Mr. Ishiguro,
Please let me begin by expressing my condolences over the unexpected loss of your literary agent, Ms. Rogers.
The primary subject for this correspondence is the matter of your novel,Never Let Me Go, which was recommended to me by a trusted source. I’ve only finished it last night. I thought it echoed a bit of your earlier novel,The Remains of the Day, which I also read and, you might recall from my letter those years ago, enjoyed very much. You responded to my letter then—much appreciated—though I don’t expect you would remember as I’m sure you are inundated with correspondence from readers. But while we’re on it, I likedThe Remains of the Daybetter than this book. I related so much to the butler, though his name escapes me now. Perhaps it’s time I read it again. The two books do, of course, share certain themes universal to the human experience—isolation, loneliness. It makes me wonder about the pain you have obviously suffered in your life. They also share that similar English countryside locality, and I like that. During the course of reading both books, I felt an urgent desire to visit England (which I will never do, although, never having visited, I imagine living in the English countryside would suit my nature very well).
I ought to get to the point. I’m writing to tell you what I thought about this new book. The story was strange indeed, and it took me at least half the book to really sort out what was afoot at Hailsham because it isn’t written like science fiction! Howclever. I very much liked the progression of the friendship between Ruth and Kathy. I also marveled at the very direct way in which the story is narrated, and I have spent a bit of time pondering this. You do very well with inhabiting your narrators and telling the story as they would. Of course, the material of this novel is grotesque and terrifying. Do you think one day science will allow for cloning? I suppose it’s ridiculous to ask, as you’re a novelist and not a scientific researcher, though presumably you did research the topic. In any case, at my old age it’s too much to consider and I do hope I’m dead long before it comes to that! (which I will certainly be—it can’t be long now) Indeed, I thought it was all very clever, and there were funny parts, and I did cry a few times. You are a very good storyteller and your writing is exquisite, which of course you know, as you have won numerous literary prizes. (A hearty congratulations to you, as well, for being awarded the French Order of Arts and Letters. Bravo.)
If you have any advice for a young aspiring writer, please pass it along. I have a high school aged friend writing bits of fiction and he’s rather unhappy. It would be lovely if I could offer him something to cheer him up.
I look forward to your next installment, and it is with warm regards I write,
Sybil Van Antwerp
Sept 2
Sybil,
Dinner Friday was great fun. Haven’t laughed that hard in ages—I know you didn’t want to have fun, but you did, so let’s do it again. I’m in the area for two more weeks. Meet me again,
Mick
Rosalie Van Antwerp
33 Orange Lane
Goshen, CT 06756
September 8, 2014
Dear Rosalie,
I RAN OVER THEODORE LÜBECK’S CAT WITH MY CAR. OH MY GOD. I was coming in from the garden club meeting this evening around six-thirty. I’d gone to the meeting, and it’s as contentious as you can imagine, and then to the Safeway for a few things, and I was coming down the road with the evening sun blinding me through the tree limbs and I had stopped the car in the middle of the street because there was a deer with her two fawns and at first it startled me. Lübeck’s cat (it’s a slate gray color with white paws) must have come underneath my car, stupid imbecile, while I was stopped and I didn’t see it—how could I have? Dear GOD. When the deer darted off into the trees I punched the gas to get going into the driveway and there was a good thwump (I was flummoxed). I stopped again, looked in the rearview and there was a twitching heap I couldn’t discern; I got out, it’s the CAT in the road! You know, I have no feelings for animals, but oh, Lord, that cat was making a terrible whine and seizing, so I stood there gaping. HORRIFIED. This cat does go outside and it comes around my garden and porch, so I’m always shooing it off. Well, I’ve shooed it off for the last time. Mr. Lübeck must have seen me from his window stopped in the road because he came out and looked at me, and then he came closer down his walk, saw the cat, and he started saying, “Oh. Oh.” I was apologizing and explaining myself and he came over and knelt down by the cat and put his big knotty hand right on the bloody, filthy fur. He asked me to go get a towel. Of course I was not going to bring out one of my own good towels, so off I went, straight in the front door of his house, Rosalie! Just waltzed right in, never set foot inside theman’s house before in my life (more on the house to follow), and I went to the bathroom and took a towel from the rack and brought it to him. These were not towels of exceptionally high quality, and a horrible mauve color, and I did take all of this into consideration, but knowing I am able to get bloodstains out of fabrics using peroxide and cold water, I figured what the hell. When I came back out the cat was fully deceased and Mr. Lübeck was on his knees. His old knees in the middle of the street wearing good khaki pants and I could see the top of his head (have I ever told you he is quite tall? A big man, built for sport, like Lars. He still has a good head of white hair). He wrapped the cat in the towel and managed to stand up carrying the cat, and that did impress me, that his knees still work so well. He thanked me for helping him—thanked me! I killed the creature!—and took the cat inside. I stood in the road for a moment. My car was still running just a few paces up toward my house and the deer were gone. Wind in the trees. A gorgeous night. Stain of cat guts on the road.
Regarding Lübeck’s house: it was neat as a pin, a mug of coffee steaming beside his La-Z-Boy, a few library books, and I wasn’t snooping, but one can’t help but notice certain things. It was spartan and tidy, but there were these little things I noticed. There is an old black-and-white photo framed on a table in his entryway of a gorgeous woman with dark hair and eyebrows maybe circa 1920s. His mother, perhaps? He has a few nice pieces of art on the walls, and the furniture is positively threadbare. A photograph beside the recliner of himself and the late wife. In the photo he looks like he’d be about the age Bruce is now. I tell you, though, going inside his house, seeing his few things, it made me feel sad, Rosalie. Boy, I’m wiped.
