How John and Sarah met: high school, a boxing sparring partner who was John's ex-girlfriend, and a year of emails
story · status: told 3× · last event: retold (2022-02-15)
Hank told in 2010, at Henry's birth, how John and Sarah met: at school, again through Sarah's boxing sparring partner, and then over a year of emails. John later called the book Sarah made of those emails, The Spring and the Fall, the most valuable book in their library.
Told alongside: John proposes to Sarah with a book inscribed by Hendrik Hertzberg (2008)
About: Sarah Urist Green, Chicago (city)
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-01-20 | told | Hank tells, mock-epic, how John and Sarah met: school in 1995, reconnection through Sarah's boxing sparring partner (John's ex-girlfriend), a year of emails and dates in 2004. (playful) | OMG MY BROTHER HAD A BABY 00:00:12 |
| 2020-04-07 | retold | For a year before they dated, John and Sarah wrote hundreds of pages of emails about art, books, movies and their days; the book Sarah made of those emails is the most important in their library. | I am an artist. 00:00:33 |
| 2022-02-15 | retold | John's most valuable book (retail about $7) is The Spring and the Fall, co-written with Sarah: given to him at their engagement, it holds every email from the year and a half before they dated. | My Most Valuable Books 00:02:55 |
What is said about it
9 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2010-01-20 · OMG MY BROTHER HAD A BABY — Hank: In Hank's telling, John was a senior in high school in 1995 and took little notice of freshman Sarah, who remembers the 'charmingly nerdy upperclassman'; they had few interactions. (playful) — 00:00:12
- 2010-01-20 · OMG MY BROTHER HAD A BABY — Hank: Ten years later Sarah's sparring partner at a Chicago boxing club turned out to be John's ex-girlfriend, also from Alabama, which reconnected John and Sarah. (playful) — 00:00:41
- 2010-01-20 · OMG MY BROTHER HAD A BABY — Hank: John and Sarah then exchanged emails for over a year, roughly 'the length of a short Russian novel', which led to a string of dates in 2004. (playful) — 00:01:09
- 2020-04-07 · I am an artist. — John: While revising the novel that became Looking for Alaska, John told Sarah he was trying to be a writer; she replied that he was writing, so he was a writer. — 00:01:05
- 2020-04-07 · I am an artist. — John says art-making is neither optional for humans nor reserved for certain people: we made art in every crisis and deprivation, painted walls before building them, and made art before farming. — 00:01:20
- 2022-02-15 · My Most Valuable Books — announcement: John says they will make Like Letters again for this year's (2022) Project for Awesome. — 00:03:24
- 2022-02-15 · My Most Valuable Books — John loves having a document charting how he and Sarah fell in like and then in love; don't print your emails, except occasionally do. (playful) — 00:03:24
- 2022-02-15 · My Most Valuable Books — ask: John asks viewers to say in comments what their most valuable books are. — 00:03:24
- 2022-02-15 · My Most Valuable Books — John would have included one of Hank's books, but going through his copies he realized Hank has never signed one for him. (playful) — 00:03:24