The Accounts of the Scorned

Dr. Sarah Dillard was an advice columnist in the Bronx, New York. She worked for a small newspaper, where she received and answered thousands of letters. These were letters of betrayal, lost love, and scorn. They were letters of pain and injury, with no hope of healing . . . or was there? Dillard began to wonder if writing letters of advice to these people was really the best way to go. She left the newspaper. She sought the senders of so many painful letters. She heard their stories-beginning to end-and came to realize that these people did not necessarily want advice. Generally, they just wanted to be heard. They wanted to share their stories, and in the sharing, perhaps prevent the repetition of history. For instance, one happily married woman discovered her husband was gay; another woman found herself in love with the "wrong" man, simply on account of his race. The Accounts of the Scorned is an awakening of the epistolary novel format, dating back to the fifteenth century. These stories are told through letters. Although Dillard received thousands of them over the course of her newspaper career, a choice few stuck with her heart. Dillard views the writers of these letters not as a psychiatrist but as a woman, with a heart, soul, and yearning to heal the brokenness of the betrayed.