April 1, 2019
A dead-letter detective rethinks his life when he reads a series of letters addressed to "My Great Love" in Cullen's debut. William Woolf is one of a small handful of postal workers who attend to dead letters, letters that for whatever reason have gotten lost in the system. His particular penchant is for the "supernaturals," letters addressed to mythical, fictional, or otherworldly recipients. When he finds a letter addressed to "My Great Love" in his pile one day, he slowly begins a journey of rediscovery in his own life. The letter writer is addressing her future love whom she's not yet met, and in her, William sees both the vitality of young love and the difference between this vibrancy and the state of his own marriage. His relationship with Clare, his wife of 14 years, has been getting rockier and rockier, and this echo of what they once had brings it to the forefront. Should he find the mysterious letter writer? Should he try to reconnect with his wife? The novel is exceedingly well-written and flows incredibly well. Despite the quirkiness implied by the setting of the dead-letter office, the story is focused much more on William and Clare's marital problems than anything that's happening at William's job. There are chapters told from both William's and Clare's points of view, although more frequently William's. Though Cullen attempts to show that both spouses are somewhat at fault for their situation, Clare is a less sympathetic character; she seems unaware for most of the book of the unrealistic standards she is imposing on her husband. A scene of William reuniting an important package with its recipient is quite moving, and the lack of more scenes showing the pathos of William's work is unfortunate. An eccentric novel with less whimsy than angst.
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Starred review from April 1, 2019
William Woolf works in East London's Dead Letters Depot, where he spends his days sifting through bags of mail to reunite lost letters with their rightful owners. Helping these strangers provides William with tremendous satisfaction and distraction from his own troubles: his strained marriage, his unfulfilled dreams, and his lingering writer's block. William discovers a series of letters a woman named Winter has sent to a "great love," her soul mate. While William navigates his dissolving marriage to Clare, he increasingly yearns to find new love with Winter. These strands of his life beginning to merge, William embarks on a journey to understand true love and rediscover his place in the world. In her mesmerizing debut, one of Cullen's many gifts is skillfully managing the voices, stories, and possibilities of the enchanting world of lost letters. In alternating chapters, Cullen allows William and Clare, both well-developed characters, to present their sides of the story. While the abrupt ending might leave readers wondering, it does little to distract from the beauty of Cullen's writing and the power of the story. This moving treatise on love and the art of letter writing will leave readers eager for more from this very talented writer.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)
April 1, 2018
In a debut recalling Nina George's The Little Paris Bookshop, lost letters end up at the Dead Letters Depot, where letter detectives survey missing zip codes, illegible handwriting, smudgy ink, lost labels, and left-off street names to find the recipients. One detective becomes enthralled with the mystery surrounding correspondence addressed only to "My Great Love." With an 80,000-copy first printing.
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