The Delicacy and Strength of Lace

“The Delicacy and Strength of Lace is an incredible document as it affords us an opportunity to reflect on the power of opening up, of sharing stories, of intimacy, and also of how much may be said in a letter, how a letter, unconfined by silly word-counts, carefully writeen rather than quickly typed in some ‘dialogue’ box, may actually result in some deep connection, awareness, and perhaps even greater understanding about what it means to live, how, as Silko describes, ‘deeply we can touch each other’ with ‘simple words.’ When was the last time something that landed in your inbox did that for you?”

“[Wright and Silko] explore the catharsis of storytelling, the overwhelming power of words (‘how deeply we can touch each other with them,’ writes Silko), and the beauty of a gentle yet passionate friendship between like-minded souls.”

Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright met only twice. First, briefly, in 1975, at a writer’s conference in Michigan. Their correspondence began three years later, after Wright wrote to Silko praising her book Ceremony. The letters began formally, and then each writer gradually opened to the other, sharing his or her life, work, and struggles. The second meeting between the two writers came in a hospital room, as Wright lay dying of cancer. The New York Times wrote something of Wright that applies to both writers—of qualities that this exchange of letters makes evident: “Our age desperately needs his vision of brotherly love, his transcendent sense of nature, the clarity of his courageous voice.”