{"product_id":"last-letter-to-a-reader-9781913505424","title":"Last Letter to a Reader","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the first days of spring in his eighty-second year, Gerald Murnane - perhaps the greatest living writer of English prose - began a project that would round off his strange career as a novelist. He would read all of his books in turn and prepare a report on each. His original intention was to lodge the reports in two of his legendary filing cabinets: in the Chronological Archive, which documents his life as a whole, and the Literary Archive, which is devoted to everything he has written. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs the reports grew, however, they themselves took on the form of a book, \u003cem\u003ea book as beguiling and hallucinatory, in its way, as the works on which they were meant to report. \u003c\/em\u003eThese miniature memoirs or stories lead the reader through the capacious territory Murnane refers to as his mind: they dwell on the circumstances that gave rise to his writing, on images and associations, on Murnane's own theories of fiction, and then memories of a deeply personal kind. The final essay is, of course, on \u003cem\u003eLast Letter to a Reader\u003c\/em\u003e itself: it considers the elation and exhilaration that accompany the act of writing, and offers a moving finale to what must surely be Murnane's last work, as death approaches. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eGerald Murnane is the award-winning author of such acclaimed works of fiction as \u003ci\u003eBorder Districts\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e Inland\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e Barley Patch\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Plains\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as the memoir\u003ci\u003e Something for the Pain\u003c\/i\u003e. Murnane lives in the remote village of Goroke in the northwest of Victoria, near the border with South Australia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"And Other Stories","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50520903155986,"sku":"9781913505424","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0544740a-42c1-4a74-a5a0-d8207ad4a290.jpg?v=1731093152","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/last-letter-to-a-reader-9781913505424","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}