From January 31, 2021
Introducing Chapter CDI of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, Violet Crepuscular takes a break from the plot and inserts extractions from some of her fan mail. She is hampered in this exercise by an inability to read. Otherwise she would never have let some of these letters see the light of day.
“It’s not that I can’t read at all,” she hastens to explain. “It’s just that I can’t read stuff that people write.” We are glad she’s cleared that up. “Fan mail,” she adds, “proves that you’ve got readers.”
From Cindy Indy, Rawalpindi: “Dear Ms. Crepuscular, your novel proves to be an effective decay-preventive dentifrice when used in a program of conscientious oral hygiene and regular professional care.”
Ozzie Spore, New York: “Your book is the only thing that keeps me living.”
Ms. June Spumoni, Bad Axe, Michigan: “My pet emu bit and kicked me after I lined his cage with pages from your wretched novel.”
Tom Popocatepetl, Jurassic Park, Hawaii: “How do you spell your name?”
“I have taken some flak for the elegant way in which I got rid of the monsters that had overrun Scurveyshire,” Ms. Crepuscular confides in her readers. She has run out of fan mail and needs to fill the rest of the chapter somehow. Harking back to her days in grade school, she writes in longhand, 100 times, “I must not waste paper.”
