Letters to a Loved One

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>I have told this story to friends of a friend this urban legend. I will start by saying that</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>September had never been so tired as it was in 1945.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>It was God's will the town lacking a legalized draft in the midst of war. It was always peacetime so sayeth the law the law held as word. Telly and Mckenzie tutor and student spent their days speaking of artistic rituals and arguing opinions. Telly was reluctantly coming to term with the fact that he would never be as good an artist as Mckenzie. Instead he took jobs at community colleges and wrote himself into plays never expressing another desire. Mckenzie was turning eighteen a dangerous age for most but not for him. Not in that safe environment where nothing could hurt him.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>They also said that a teenage boy wants nothing but heroics. But with no draft no machine guns no mud tracks dead friends or bombs it felt like peacetime.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>There was no draft but there were volunteers.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>At turns both allegorical and lyrical Hannah Duffy's debut captures the world at a time of upheaval and uncertainly through the eyes of two young men.</span></p>