(rare handwritten signed letter from Mavis Gallant twenty years ago)
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Mavis Gallant (August 11, 1922-February 18, 2014) was an internationally renowned short story writer who was originally from Montreal, but spend most of her life in Paris, her adopted home, where she died.
The preceding letter from September,1994, was to her good friend William Klyn, husband of her close Victoria, B.C. friend Doyle Klyn, a popular journalist for the 1960s Weekend Magazine, who had died following a stroke. She and Doyle went all the way back to the 1950s and stayed in touch over the many years afterward.
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The letter above transcribed:
Dear Bill,
I’ve waited a few days before writing you, thinking you would be inundated with telephone calls & messages. There is absolutely nothing I can say to help. I just want you to know that you are very much in my thoughts, and that I wish I could be, in some way, useful. Thank God for Wally Lee. As an old friend of yours, I am ready to consider him a friend, too, because of his kindness & devotion to you & Doyle.
My world is emptier without Doyle, but what I think & feel is nothing compared with the loss for you. I shan’t say more, because I know it would be useless & no help at all. Doyle was the nearest thing I ever had to an older sister; but for you so much more. I don’t expect to hear from you, but I shall undoubtedly have news through your kind friend.
In the meantime, I send you my love.
Mavis