The Letter in the Bottle

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My friend Sioux found it while walking her dogs. Inside lay a letter, tightly curled and held by a ribbon. It was in French, so she sent it to me. As I deciphered it, I found myself weeping. The letter was from a mother to 'all ships at sea, all ports of call, to my family, to all friends and strangers', but most of all it was a love letter to her son Maurice — a son who had died aged It was beautiful, poetic, tragic — and unsigned. Wrapped within the pages were two locks of hair, one darker brown, one lighter. When Sioux received my translation she too was devastated at its message, so much so that she could not bear to read it more than once.

Both of us were mothers; her son was the same age as Maurice, mine a few years younger. Over the next weeks I found myself wondering about the author of the letter. Had she killed herself as the letter seemed at one point to indicate , or had she achieved closure and acceptance as the end hinted?

How had Maurice died? Could one ever recover from such a catastrophe?

Was this letter in the bottle a cry for help? How to discover new books. Andes by Michael Jacobs: The Cambridge Companion to English Novelists: To Kill a Mockingbird read by Sissy Spacek. I began to wonder whether it would be possible to find her. I had very few concrete clues. I knew the boy's first name, his age, that he had died 'at the dawn of summer' and that the letter was contained in an extraordinary Evian bottle, shaped like a tear drop.

I didn't consciously embark on a search — I just started to make some gentle enquiries. A query here, a telephone call there, and before I had really considered the matter I found I had embarked on a real quest. I was buoyed by a foolish confidence in my abilities as a researcher — I had experience of winkling out long-buried secrets. It never occurred to me that it would be so serious, or take so long.

I began by assuming Maurice had drowned, because the imagery in the letter was all of water and sea.

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The unknown mother wrote that he 'travelled between two waters, between two lights', that he had now 'reached harbour again, on a faraway shore'. After a few months ferreting my way through French government departments that compiled statistical analysis into juvenile drownings, I wondered whether my first deduction had been right. I consulted a private detective who suggested other possibilities, including suicide, but we still felt that drowning was the most likely cause of death, perhaps caused by a row between mother and son — in the letter she asked for forgiveness for her anger.

Perhaps they had had an argument and he had jumped into his small sailing boat, or on to his windsurfer, overestimating his ability to return to shore? In my imagination I saw the boy's outstretched hand sliding away into the stormy sea, the mother leaning out over the gunnels of another boat and failing to reach him.

Pestering Evian eventually produced the answer that the bottle had been in production since October Expert analysis of the sea currents, the letter paper and the handwriting produced few answers, only more questions. My years of search were peppered by hopes raised and dashed. A follicologist, expert in analysing hair roots, promised great things for the two curls rolled within the letter.

In case of a drug overdose, for instance — a possible hypothesis — any drug traces would, he claimed, be revealed; he would even be able to tell the boy's hometown from any mineral residues. But it turned out that he needed the roots of the hair before he could supply such answers, not just locks of cut hair.

Message in a bottle

Medical practitioners made new insights. A GP suggested meningoencephalitis, based on the vague mentions of floating between two worlds. A psychoanalytic psychotherapist gave me a version whereby the boy had had no alternative but to harm himself in order to escape the mother's suffocating love, the absence of a father having so damaged him. I analysed the language of the letter to discover the influences, from Hollywood weepies to Victor Hugo. I even visited a ribbon specialist to discuss the blue silk thread that encircled the letter. In short, looking back, I became a kind of stalker, although it crept up so gradually I didn't really notice.

At times I forgot that the writer was a grieving mother, and I looked only for an answer to a niggling puzzle. But then a look at the letter would remind me what profound, heartfelt grief lay at the origin of my search.

There came a point when I had exhausted all the logical, scientific methods. Various friends suggested more alternative solutions: The graphologist offered insights into the mother's character, but no answers. The tarot told me 'facts' about the disease that had killed Maurice, the appearance of the mother, the way the bottle had entered the water … Almost none would prove to be accurate.

The astrologer gave such obscure messages as to be meaningless: I wrote up the story of my failed quest, and sent it out into the world, much like a letter in a bottle. Finally, last year The Letter in the Bottle was published in France. To my astonishment, delight and fright it became a media sensation. I was interviewed on the national evening news, prime-time television shows filmed the beach where the bottle had landed, daytime reality shows joined the search, the book went on sale in supermarkets.

Suddenly, one day, I got a phone call. The author of the letter had been found. Although I had been contacted by a few claimants, I knew immediately that this was the real one. Later she would confirm it. She had kept the rough drafts of the letter, she had kept the Dictaphone on which she had recorded her message, she had even kept the tickets from the ferry she had taken to throw the bottle into the ocean.

And after a few months, when the initial shock of discovering that she had been the subject of such a quest had subsided a little, she finally agreed to meet me…. We took the We stayed on it at Dover. Christine, my best friend, helped me, she accompanied me. Without her I wouldn't have been strong enough to do it. On the way over I tried, but I just didn't have the strength. Then, on the way back, Christine said, 'You must do it now, throw the bottle now.

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A few moments later the bridge emptied, and we were left alone. A nameless drifter dons a postman's uniform and bag of mail as he begins a quest to inspire hope to the survivors living in post-apocalyptic America. The retired US Navy pilot comes to Mexico, where he falls in love with the wife of a powerful businessman. The consequences will be cruel and unforeseen. A high school swim champion with a troubled past enrolls in the U.

Coast Guard's "A" School, where legendary rescue swimmer Ben Randall teaches him some hard lessons about loss, love, and self-sacrifice. The story of Wyatt Earp as he interacts and battles other famous figures of the Wild West era. In a remarkable turn-of-events, the result of the presidential election comes down to one man's vote. A woman finds a romantic letter in a bottle washed ashore and tracks down the author, a widowed shipbuilder whose wife died tragically early. As a deep and mutual attraction blossoms, the man struggles to make peace with his past so that he can move on and find happiness.

Spread the message and let everyone know that "Message In A Bottle" was an incredible sight to behold because it was the type of movie that cleared my mind of everything else and allowed to relax in my chair. Costner, Newman and Wright Penn share the screen to tell the incredible, emotional and powerful story of one reporter's mission to locate the writer of three mysterious messages that turned up ashore. The following events set off a tender and sweet romance between Garret Blake played by Costner and Theresa Osborne played by Penn.

Also, mixed into this wonderfully crafted plot is Newman who plays Dodge, Garret's father who acts as a calming effect for his son when trying to deal with his newfound feelings about Theresa and those for Catherine, the object of the mysterious messages. The performances by Costner, Penn and Newman seemed so natural it was enjoyable to watch actors not try so hard to do their best. I got the feeling that the actors truly cared about making this film the best they could for their fans because of the integrity and sincerity they brought to their characters.

In addition, it had two of my favorite actors and it gave me the opportunity to watch a brilliant actress come in to her own.

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