Matthew Held

The Two Samuels: Letters and Papers from the 20th Century Matthew Held

It is 1945, the war in Europe just coming to an end. Two friends living in Brooklyn are parted; the older, from a traditional Jewish home, goes off to university. There, he is exposed to the blasts of post-Nietzschean thought (God is dead) and twentieth century philosophies of Being and existential isolation. He also explores with his cousin Frances (who is attending Ithaca College) the ravishing countryside around Ithaca, the lakes, streams and waterfalls. In expressive, sometimes turbulent letters, he describes all this to his friend Sam. About to enter his second year of high school, Sam responds in the midst of sudden crises in his own life?and goes on writing to Samuel, indeed, long after his friend has died suddenly, tragically. In the end, who is writing or has written many of these letters becomes a mystery Sam?s family decides, much later, to explore.