Miles Apart

On the surface, Miles Buffett appears to be a successful Dallas lawyer. But, by his own estimation, he has been a failure as a human being. Having lost his mother to cancer years before, the death of his father sends him home to Memphis, Tennessee, where he reunites with a lost love, whose betrayal drove him from Memphis in the first place.

While sorting through his father's office, Miles discovers a packet of letters written between his grandparents in 1937, when his grandfather, desperate for work, labored in the wheat fields of Kansas, leaving his wife and infant son behind in New Mexico. As Miles delves into their writings of love and loneliness, he uncovers a family secret kept buried for decades, and he uses his grandparents' love to reawaken his slumbering sense of honor, resolve issues with his past love, and begin to forgive himself.

This novel was inspired by a packet of letters I found in my father's desk following his death in 1993. They were written between his grandparents (Leonard and Mabel Farris) in 1916 when, like the fictional characters in the novel (Leonard and Mabel Buffett), they were separated by a financial hardship.