Three Guesses, a moving and revelatory novella-in-letters, takes us deep into the inner lives of the three correspondents, considering how a willingness to be open–even vulnerable–with others can form the basis of lasting friendships. The book, which won the 2023 Fugere Book Prize from Regal House Publishing, also offers a perceptive and layered exploration of how art can connect us in a search for meaning. (It is scheduled to be published in June.)
In the novella, one key piece of art is a painting named Three Guesses, which sets off years of correspondence between the three central characters: Sam Brooks, Pete Wren (the painting’s creator), and Richard Mabry. Sam initiates the correspondence when, as a temporary worker at an art-donation organization, she feels the need to come clean to Pete, who’d donated the painting, and Richard, the current owner of the work, about some shenanigans behind the auction through which Richard acquired it. (In short, Richard sent a bidder in his stead to the auction, and in a drunken state, and in collaboration with drunken companions, the bidder escalated the sale price of the work far above the estimated gallery value.)
In a reply to Sam and Pete, Richard expresses no interest in returning the painting, praising it as “exquisite and mysterious, like a soft poem surrounded by a bold storm,” and he asks Pete for more information about it and “what it represents.” In his first letter to Sam and Richard, Pete doesn’t answer Richard’s questions and asks to be left alone. But Richard refuses to respect this wish, and he continues to pepper Pete, and also Sam, with questions.
Gradually, the characters open up to one another, and letter by letter, we learn more and more about them. Sam, especially at the start of the novella, shares feelings of rootlessness and of dissatisfaction with her life. Pete describes his existence as a working artist and also the complicated feelings he has about his agent and sometime-love. In time, he also reveals childhood traumas that continue to affect him. Richard describes ups and downs in his love life, small-town homophobia he’s experienced as a gay man, and other day-to-day news and struggles.
The correspondence between the characters spans the years of 1998 to 2005, from the early days of email to the start of the surge in texting, yet these then-newish forms of communication never replace the letter as the characters’ chosen means of written communication–to the novella’s credit. The exchanges of letters in the book are revelatory in ways that emails and text messages–and, in certain ways, even face-to-face conversations–can’t match. For example, though some of the letters are brief and to the point, most of them offer deep dives into characters’ personal setbacks and dreams, and into their perceptions of their lives and what might be lacking in them. In this way, the letters combine the intimacy of journal entries with the characters’ desire to share aspects of their inner lives to see how their correspondents might react to them–and react they do, in enlightening and (mostly) supportive ways.
Yet the letters in Three Guesses do more than provide an honest, unflinching perspective on the characters’ inner lives; they present a detailed picture of how the correspondents’ friendship evolves and deepens over time. As part of their friendship, Sam, Richard, and Pete share major developments in their lives–one of the biggest ones being Sam’s decision to become a single mother, resulting in a loving relationship with her daughter, Leeci.
Notably, Pete’s letters sometimes transition from the epistolary to the literary, ending with poems or stories that shed even more light on his past traumas or current struggles, or that extend to the mythical or philosophical. Like the painting Three Guesses, these literary elements offer multiple opportunities for reflection, and for a deeper connection, between Sam, Pete, and Richard.
Eventually, Richard and Sam suggest that the trio move beyond letters, perhaps to emails or phone calls, as a means of communicating. But Pete is having none of this. Then, certain events push the characters toward the possibility of a face-to-face meeting in the oceanside community where Sam has finally, and happily, found a home. One event is a crisis in one of the character’s lives, and the other is surprising news about Leeci’s biological father, who doesn’t know he’s become a parent and who isn’t as far away, geographically, as Sam had imagined. Both of these situations seem to call for a face-to-face meeting of the friends, with the mutual support this would offer.
As for the enigmatic painting Three Guesses, Richard and Sam speculate about what the work shows or means, in the absence of any clues from Pete. Both detect the form of a woman, who seems to be walking along a shoreline, a setting that becomes especially meaningful after Sam moves near the ocean. The possible identity of the woman sparks still more speculation. In this way, the title of the painting echoes Richard’s and Sam’s guessing game. But it seems to have a larger meaning, suggesting the mysteries that the characters represent to one another, especially early in the novella, and to themselves–particularly as they try to figure out what’s next in their lives.
In summary, Three Guesses is a warm, witty, and incisive book, one that makes smart use of the epistolary form. It was a pleasure to read.
Would My Pick be Your Pick?
If you're interested in ________, the answer may be "Yes":￭ Stories about friendships
￭ Stories about self-discovery
￭ Visual and literary art