Snyder's Letters

Sampson Orion Snyder, born of an authoritative father, is a man searching for a fight, especially against anything he perceives as hypocrisy. He takes on racism, organized religion, his superiors, or anything having to do with the establishment.

This book is a collection of letters: those he receives and those he initiates. When he receives a letter from a Methodist bishop exhorting him to mend his ways, he replies: "If you must save someone, save a Jew, a Black Panther, a Chinaman. Save yourself. But don't save me. I free you from all responsibility for my soul. I don't trust you with it."

And he receives letters. From a racist: "Rather than see my grandchildren educated in a mixed school, I had much rather they were executed by a firing squad". From his grandmother: "I even played around a little when I could--never with a minister even though there were some who wanted me to. You have to know that most of your Grandfather's hardness was in his head."

Snyder's Letters is a sad but funny tale about a complex man whose initials portray a life lived in constant turmoil.