Shem Fleenor

Letters Not Sent Shem Fleenor

This work of historical fiction is set in New York City, Spain, and Arizona in the late-1930s. The primary focus of the story is the socioeconomic and internal conflicts faced by the Abrahams family, which compel the protagonist, Zapata, to defy federal law to fight fascism in Spain. Shem Fleenor spent the summer and fall of 2015 at NYU's Bobst Library special collections researching letters written by Americans who fought in Spain from 1937 to 1938. The majority of men and women who penned these letters, which ultimately inspired this saga, were desperate to eke out livelihoods by any means necessary during the Great Depression. The war in Spain promised them a paltry paycheck and, many of them hoped, a chance to strike a devastating blow at an economic system and political ideology that many believed systemically devalued human life and made cannon fodder of the working class.