The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The background is pink. In centre, watercolour art of two people. The person at the front is a young woman, with short blank hair wearing a dark striped shirt. Her head is tilted to the side. Behind her, a man with a short hair, a square head and glasses. His paint is fainter. In the foreground of the cover, over the painting, the title “Dear Fang, With Love” is written in large, white italics. Immediately below this, the author’s name “Rufi Thorpe” in smaller white caps. Immediately below this, in smaller white italics, the sentence “The author of The Girls from Corona Del Mar’. /end]

---

Content Warning:

• References to Rape
• References to Child Sexual Assault
• Self Harm
• References to the Holocaust

---

Summary:

A sprawling, ambitious new novel about a young father who takes his teenage daughter to Europe, hoping that an immersion in history might help them forget his past mistakes and her uncertain future.

Lucas and Katya were boarding school seniors when, blindingly in love, they decided to have a baby. Seventeen years later, after years of absence, Lucas is a weekend dad, newly involved in his daughter Vera’s life. But after Vera suffers a terrifying psychotic break at a high school party, Lucas takes her to Lithuania, his grandmother’s homeland, for the summer. Here, in the city of Vilnius, Lucas hopes to save Vera from the sorrow of her diagnosis. As he uncovers a secret about his grandmother, a Home Army rebel who escaped Stutthof, Vera searches for answers of her own. Why did Lucas abandon her as a baby? What really happened the night of her breakdown? And who can she trust with the truth?

Skillfully weaving family mythology and Lithuanian history with a story of mental illness, inheritance, young love, and adventure, Rufi Thorpe has written a wildly accomplished, stunningly emotional book.

---

Notes:

There is an audiobook.

---

Archivist Comments:

I’m having some difficulty finding information on the content warnings of this book, so if there’s one you want me to add please just let me know. I believe the narrator for this book is Lucas, the father.

---