Younger Than That Now: A Shared Passage from the Sixties

About this book

An unforgettable dual memoir that explores an extraordinary friendship ... and illuminates a generation. It began in 1969 when a group of bored Long Island high school reporters wrote for a lark an obnoxious note to Ruth Tuttle the editor of a school paper in small-town Mississippi. The ringleader Jeff Durstewitz impulsively dropped the letter into a mailbox never suspecting that within a few days hed receive an electrifying response. In the following flurry of letters genteelly Southern Ruth and brash New Yorker Jeff explored their feelings about God race sex and life -- and an enduring friendship was begun. Over the next thirty years this long-distance bond sustained Ruth and Jeff through love affairs and heartbreak social change and disillusionment divorce and the loss of a cherished friend. As their letters chart their passage from youth to middle age their memoir captures not just the hopes of an era yearning for revolution and the soul of a country on the brink of change but also the essence of being bright young and passionate. Sharp funny and true here is a mirror for a generation -- both then and now.