Chasing Vermeer

The motif of letters appears in the very first pages of Chasing Vermeer when three people receive the same anonymous letter. Unbeknownst to the reader, Ms. Hussey is one of the recipients. Perhaps assuming she can trace the writer to someone in Hyde Park, Ms. Hussey tasks her class with finding someone who has received an interesting letter. When that assignment fails to produce results, Ms. Hussey takes the class on a field trip to the Art Institute. Their assignment is to find works of art that feature letters.

In completing Ms. Hussey’s assignments, Petra subconsciously makes the connection between letters and art in a way that allows her to communicate with the Lady. She later learns that the figure she sees is part of a painting entitled A Lady Writing, completing the association with letters. Petra also physically captures a letter on two occasions. In the first instance, the wind carries the message off before she can read all of it. In the second, she finds a fragment of the anonymous letter in Mrs. Sharpe’s hedges.

Calder employs letters as physical correspondence when he communicates with Tommy in code. The code itself is dependent on the letters of the alphabet that manifest in Calder’s pentominoes. At one point, Ms. Hussey declares that the letter is dead as a form of communication. The anonymous letters and the boys’ coded communication prove it to be very much alive.