Letters to America

A Modern-Day Profiles in Courage from New York Times Bestselling Author Tom Blair

In Letters to America, Tom Blair conjures up mini-memoirs of twelve fictional historical characters—spanning four centuries, from the first settlers in Jamestown to a 21st century billionaire. Whether going West in a wagon train or off to war to defend the nation, these past Americans suffered and sacrificed to achieve monumental goals. The events of the book ricochet between funny and sad, hopeful and doubtful, but a common theme runs through the letters: personal struggles to build a better life in America. Do we, modern Americans, have the work ethic and perseverance of our forefathers? By revealing the lives of these twelve indelible characters, Blair hopes to inspire readers to strive to gain personal success. 

The stories in each chapter reveal what it has meant to be an American throughout history—ranging from a single year in the life of Milly’s sister, an unsophisticated and confused young girl toiling in a sweatshop, to an entire lifetime for John, a sharecropper’s son who goes on to fight Nazis and ends life witnessing integration in the South. Blair’s Letters to America is a compilation of voices each entirely distinct, weaving “an imaginative, sobering, and instructive message to contemporary Americans,” according to Tom Brokaw. Featuring a brand-new preface from the author, all together these stories tell a history that is both humbling and deeply affecting, filled with hope for a future that can be as inspirational as our past.