Inspired by a letter written by the real Joan, found hidden in the wall of a Pennsylvania home more than half a century later, this story is a fictionalized imagining of who she was and what motivated her. Moving through several decades and events—from the 1918 influenza pandemic to Prohibition to the Great Depression to Vietnam—A Letter in the Wall examines the internal and external factors that influence one woman’s journey toward independence and empowerment.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Eileen Brill’s A Letter in the Wall, which is out May 24th 2022!
It’s 1971, and Joan Dumann fears her former business partner wants her dead—but her anxiety is less about dying than it is about feeling disrespected and invalidated. As she constructs a letter about her predicament, she revisits her past.
Born into a prominent Philadelphia Quaker family in 1915 and raised with privilege and opportunity, Joan wrestles with her turbulent thoughts and unfulfilled desires—an internal battle that often results in self-destructive tendencies. When she attempts to push against the norms for women of her time in order to forge her own identity, she is met with resistance. Yet she might also be her own worst enemy, often alienating those who care deeply for her. Both manipulative and vulnerable, naive and conniving, Joan is, like many people, complex and misunderstood.
She arrived at the mailbox one street over from her apartment complex. As she opened the slot, Joan noticed two figures walking toward her in the dark. They were still a half-block away, but near enough that if they wanted to reach her, they could. She thought the better of dropping in the letter and spun on her heel, rushing back toward her apartment.
Once inside, Joan turned the lock on the doorknob, slid the chain lock into place, threw the envelope on her desk, and headed into the kitchen. She plunked a couple ice cubes in a glass and added one inch of Jack Daniels. Reaching into the refrigerator for a bottle of Coke, she noticed she was low on eggs, milk and lunch meat. She topped her glass with the soda.
Leaning against the kitchen counter, Joan took a sip and relished the warmth as the fused liquids coated her throat and calmed her nerves. She stared at the envelope on the desk. Would the hours she’d just put into reconstructing a few months’ worth of events have been for naught, or would anyone take her seriously? I don’t trust the Sheriff. She knew what she needed to do. She took one more sip of her drink, poured the rest down the drain, and made a beeline for the envelope. She sat down at her desk, grabbed her engraved, sterling silver letter opener — given to her by her late husband as one of several fiftieth birthday gifts – and quickly opened the envelope and removed the contents. She took a new envelope from a desk drawer and placed the pages into it; then she reached for her pen and began writing out a different addressee. She affixed postage and propped the envelope against her desk lamp. She would mail the letter tomorrow.
Satisfied with her decision, Joan headed into the bathroom for a shower.
The warm water running down her body provided such instantaneous relief to her tension that she momentarily considered switching to a bath in order to fully bask in the comfort. But she remembered that she was out of Calgon and made a mental note to buy more tomorrow.
Tomorrow. Her anxiety returned.
She turned off the shower and reached for her towel, wrapping it around her body as she walked into her bedroom. As she dried off, she noticed the hardback copy of Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique resting on her night table where it had sat, unread, since her eldest daughter, Barbara, had given it to her as a birthday gift months before. Barbara had recommended it strongly, believing it would resonate with her mother. My daughter, the feminist, Joan thought.
Joan’s skin now felt sticky and uncomfortable. Crawling into bed nude, she tossed aside the bedspread and allowed the bedsheet to softly rest on her petite frame. She managed to relax, cool off, and eventually drift off to sleep.
