A Letter in the Wall

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. 

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.

Great for fans of Benilde Little’s Who Does She Think She Is?, Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, and Leslye Walton’s The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender.

*A note from the author*

In 2007, shortly after I moved into my house, an electrician found an old, tattered envelope in a wall as he was installing a new outlet. The envelope seemed to have been sealed then reopened, but certainly never mailed, as it was addressed to someone in another state. Inside the envelope, I found an undated, handwritten letter on personalized stationary. Some cursory internet research revealed that the letter-writer, Joan, and her family were the first residents of my house, built in 1920. The letter was likely written when she was a teenager in the early 1930s.
I became driven by the desire to know Joan, to understand why she never mailed the letter, and what her relationship was with the boy to whom the letter was written. But, more importantly, I was struck by the trajectory her life seemed to have taken based on the scant information I was able to uncover. What began as my attempt at a biography ended up as a work of fiction, and, though the novel spans seven decades, it falls into a slightly different genre than “historical fiction”. Perhaps more accurately, it is psychological fiction, a historical mystery, with an imagining of who Joan was and what motivated her. The story explores her life and the decisions which resulted in both her evolution and her demise.
As it is based on a real person, there are snippets of truth throughout the story, small parcels of information I picked up while researching this woman. So that’s real-life, which can be messy and fraught. And, the sad reality of the situation is that the actual woman on whom the story is based was, in fact, murdered.

But, the story has elements of tenderness, humor and redemption, as well as nods to Joan’s positive traits and her evolution. She is an anti-heroine, though perhaps also a “first-wave” feminist before there was a name for that. The reader wants her to succeed as she attempts to push back against societal norms, yet she can be her own worst enemy. While not always likeable, Joan is relatable and complex, and her longings are palpable.

A Letter in the Wall provides great fodder for discussions on nature vs. nurture, women’s issues, family life and empathy.