Dear Mr. Henshaw, by Beverley Clearly

I think this is a simple story of a tragic contemporary situation, well told.

The premise is unique: a boy writes to his favourite author, Mr. Henshaw, about his parent’s divorce. Henshaw’s replies are terse, but Leigh writes persistently, eventually -at the writer’s suggestion – keeping a journal to “Dear Mr. Pretend Henshaw” to abate his loneliness. Leigh’s character is shown through his writings, and as he journals, we can see Leigh grow, and his voice develop.

In the middle of the story, Leigh asks Henshaw for advice on a story he is writing.
“In a story, a character must grow or change in some way.” Leigh acknowledges the advice: “I guess a wax man who keeps melting isn’t really the kind of change you’re talking about.”

Heeding her own advice, Clearly’s character changes perceptibly: each of three strands of Leigh’s life – school, family, and writing – change and become resolved. As his relationship with his father (whose irresponsible behaviour has always been jarring to the sensitive boy, particularly in his inability to express affection – “Keep your nose clean, kid,” is all Leigh gets when he wants to be addressed by his first name and be told he’s missed) worsens, Leigh’s writing improves: at the climax of the story, Leigh calls his father after a long silence and discovers that not only has he neglected to call his son, but that he has lost his dog, and has a girlfriend with a son. In his incredible pain, Leigh finds that he is able to journal for himself: he finds that he no longer has to write to Mr. Pretend Henshaw, “I have learned to express my feelings on a piece of paper.” When home life falls apart, Leigh has his writer’s epiphany. Eventually, his intelligence – which takes expression in fashioning a burglar alarm for his lunchbox (his stolen lunches has been a source of humour and a way to portray his out-of-place- status at his new school), he finally garners friends who think his skills are all too cool.

Leigh continues to write honestly and wins a prize in the yearbook writing contest. In his composition, he had described a memory of an afternoon with his father, which apparently – according to the jury writer – conveyed the place, and his feelings truthfully. This reminds me of Emily of New Moon‘s trial to write “only the truth” for three years, and her writing improves from illustrating facts. “Write what you know” (although there’s a good deal of writing limited by what the author knows, -> see The Cat Ate My Gymsuit). Dear Mr. Henshaw is also the classic novel-for-aspiring-writers, in which the bookish main character gets their first recognition for their dreams – but for all its perfection in plot and structure it is no Emily, which will always be a true psychological portrait of a writer’s mind, and “alpine path,” for me.

The book culminates in this awkward scene when Leigh’s father comes back and tries to reconcile the divorce, and we can tell that Leigh’s writing talents have become articulate enough to convey the charged emotions of this moment. It’s a poignant scene, and artful of Clearly to choose to tell it from the limited perspective of a child narrator.