Letters to Jud

Missouri native Don Alderman always regretted not visiting his father for one final goodbye on the morning he left town to begin life on his own. That was in 1956. Only months later in 1957 his father died and that goodbye was left unsaid. Now half a century later the author makes amends in Letters to Jud a sensitive funny and sometimes scary coming-of-age tale of life in a quirky little town at the edge of the Missouri Ozarks.<p>The narrative is told in two dozen letters written to the spirit of the author's father Jud Alderman depot agent for the Frisco Railroad. The setting is Republic Missouri in the years just before during and after World War II. Initially seen through a young boy's eyes the narrative ends years later when the author returns to his hometown as a grown man and discovers that his father's beloved old depot has vanished and with it the last symbol of his family's years in Republic.<p>Letters to Jud is an engaging portrait of a classically American small town experience. It is a tale that offers relief from the coarseness of our culture today- an antidote that can be taken as often as needed.