Letter to My Daughter by George Bishop

Recently, I finished reading Letter to My Daughter by George Bishop—who graduated from Loyola. The book was his first novel and it was absolutely amazing. The story was set in Zachary and Baton Rouge. It is about a mother who is writing a letter to her daughter who just ran away. In the letter, the mother—who is white—describes her relationship with a Cajun boy, which at the time was very inappropriate given the fact that Cajun people were—as black people—discriminated. After I finished reading the book, I went to a talk with George Bishop, who is currently living in New Orleans. He started by saying how we had come up with the idea of the book while he was dreaming. Then, he talked about what and how he had researched for the book, and finally, he emphasized that being a writer was a terrible profession because it could be very frustrating. I think he was a very interesting and the novel very nicely describes how Louisiana was in the mid-1950. For example, in the book, Laura—the mother who is writing the letter—is describing when she was transferred to Sacred Heart Academy in Baton Rouge from her high school in Zachary at age 15. When she transfers, she goes from being a white privileged girl in the country to a “charity case” in a catholic school in the city. Those kinds of ideas about race and social classes appeared several times throughout the novel, and are very helpful when imagining the social context of that time. Additionally, it is remarkable how George Bishop writes from the perspective of a mother. Overall, if anyone wants to read a moving and interesting love story, I really recommend Letter to My Daughter.