CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/23/2019

Congratulations Letter16 Press on Naomi Fry's wonderful 'New Yorker' review of 'Shtetl in the Sun'!

Since we received our first joy-inducing shipment of Leter16 Press's Shtetl in the Sun in February 2019, we haven't been able to keep the book in stock for more than a few weeks at a time. It's just too good, too unusual, too spot-on. This week, New Yorker writer Naomi Fry explains exactly what's so great about this unassuming outlier documenting late 70s Jewish South Beach retirees by the late Miami photographer Andy Sweet. "Many of Sweet’s subjects were foreign-born, or only a generation removed from the Old Country, and their crowded proximity to one another in the homogenous South Beach—whose streets, stores, reception halls and beaches reflected the retirees’ cultural, social and religious tastes—made for a community that could indeed seem shtetl-like, more Eastern European than American. But the vibrancy of Sweet’s color photographs showcases these subjects as particularly American, too. Under cerulean skies, at the shores of the azure Atlantic, in the shade of tall, green palm trees, nearly vibrating in the hot Miami sun, the photographer’s subjects—aged but resilient, a new breed of pioneers in a new kind of frontier—were of this country just as much as [Stephen] Shore’s roadside budget motels and gas stations, or [William] Eggleston’s diners and long-finned cars."