A nice letter about "Letters"

Thanks to my old So Cal buddy, Robby Gore, for sending me this nice review. It was in Dylan Leach’s blog review.  Posted just after the book came out, probably forwarded to him by my friends at LULU, who have worked tirelessly on my behalf.

“I discovered John Crawley a few short years ago with his novel, Stuff.  I found it to be a rewarding book (albeit a short one) and was one of the first self-published works I reviewed. (At that time it raised eyebrows from my editors, as well as colleagues.) His later works, including The Myth Makers and Fishing Lessons intrigued me, in that he moved from voice to voice and from genre to genre with great ease and aplomb; then along comes Letters from Paris, his latest, and I believe his web site said, 13^th book. I have not read them all, but I do think it must be his best.

This work is rich in language, plot and structure.  It flows like a real history and captures a time and a spirited group of people with imagination and grace, although I do wish more time could have been spent with other members of the Lost Generation than just John dos Passos. From the first page to the last, this narrative takes us into the life of a woman who looks at our world in such pure, unabashed honesty as to make me blush with embarrassment at my own social nearsightedness.

I am not going to get into the review of the main character, Clare de Fontroy and her travails at this time, What I wish to address is the level of writing that self-publishing is reaching.  Just find a copy of one of Crawley’s books and you can see that the art form is in excellent hands— even without the aid of a big publishing house (although LULU Press has become one of the largest forces in books today).  The novel is solid and it has a real chance to find and grow a substantial audience.  What intrigues me is that a book of this quality (Letters from Paris) may go unread by millions, when it deserves every eyeball it can get, glued to the riveting story of the remarkable heroine of the story. She is a wonderful model for us all, as is the book crafted around her: a job very well done by this author from the States.”

Letters from Paris. A must read.

Dylan Leach

Sydney