Cherry Picked: Selections From Letters to a Friend

by Fred Nichols

In November of 1980 Fred Nichols began a correspondence with an old friend. Pretty soon they realized they were compiling what amounted to a literary conversation, which they referred to as the Letter. Every two months or so, a packet of pages from one of them would thump into the mailbox of the other; the recipient would reply about two months later with a packet of his own writing. The packets could run anywhere from twenty to sixty single-spaced pages, or more. The idea was to keep the other person entertained, so the packets might include book reviews, movie reviews, stray thoughts about the meaning of life, and sketches of things they observed in their daily lives. They kept it going for fourteen years.

By 1994 the Letter was a monster, nearly 5000 pages. For years Nichols let the binders take up a whole sagging bookshelf in his study. He knew there was some good writing in there, probably his best work. But he also knew he couldn’t expect anyone to sort through the mass of often chatty, quotidian stuff to unearth a few gems. If it were to be available to anyone else, he would have to do the digging.

The result is a light-hearted collection of snapshots of American life in the 1980s and 1990s.

240 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 16, 2022