"It began when a group of bored Long Island high school newspaper reporters wrote, for a lark, an obnoxious note to Ruth Tuttle, the editor of a Deep South school paper. The New York teens included a future documentary filmmaker, a concert violinist, and the founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream - but in those days they were typical high school seniors, quick to imagine they knew all about a girl they'd never met.

The ringleader, Jeff Durstewitz, impulsively dropped the letter into a mailbox, never suspecting that within a few days he'd receive an electrifying response. In the following flurry of letters, genteelly Southern Ruth and brash Jeff explored their feelings - sometimes heatedly - about God, race, sex, and life. Within a month of receiving Ruth's first letter, Jeff was planning a Yankee invasion of Yazoo City, Mississippi.".

"Spring break brought a wild drive from New York to Yazoo City with his two friends in a psychedelic VW Bug, a "Heat of the Night" encounter between a cop and these three headstrong teens, and a culture clash in Ruth's living room that neither she nor her proper parents would ever forget. It was a night that shattered stereotypes - and their hopes for a romance.

But it didn't derail the long-distance friendship that would sustain them both through thirty years of love affairs, heartbreaking disappointments, social change, divorce, and the loss of a cherished friend as they negotiated the passages from youth to middle age. And with each move, the packet of precious letters traveled too."--BOOK JACKET.