The Correspondence

In this collection of six essays, loosely styled as letters (though not addressed to anyone in particular), Daniels investigates a series of personal subjects and experiences. In the first letter, written from Cambridge, Mass., Daniels details the years he spent training and competing in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He enjoys the fighting, for reasons he can barely identify, but there are costs to his personal life. The next letter, written from Majorca, explains how an Israeli ship captain recruited Daniels to work on a boat just as Daniels’s relationships were falling apart at home. His “Letter from Kentucky” is a conflicted but passionate personal odyssey through the region where his family has lived for generations. Here he realizes he can’t help but write about his father: “His aim was to protect me from the darkness all around us, using the darkness inside himself.” The other letters feature profiles of a disturbed, paranoid man, a couple enmeshed in a love triangle, and Daniels’s bizarre experience with something called a “residential group-relations conference.” Throughout the book, Daniels masterfully hints at other stories just off the page, revealing much about himself but never too much. Although the essays mostly lack traditional qualities of letters, they comprise a fascinating correspondence from his world. The letters here represent a bold and daring contribution to belles lettres; Daniels is an essayist to watch. (Jan.)