For the Eternal Record
A dialogic epistolary novel written between Cole Alabaster and Kelsey Carlee in the year 2020.
Kelsey Carlee
4/12/20241 min read
For the Eternal Record is a dialogic epistolary novel written between Cole Alabaster and Kelsey Carlee in the year 2020. Cole was incarcerated when Kelsey reached out to discuss the abrupt ending of their brief summer relationship back in 2001. She writes to him during the deep stages of grief after losing her mother, whom she removed from life support in 2019, as she pieced together her memoir, Double Crossed and Unraveled, and broke the chains that kept her imprisoned by her past. Their unfiltered writing sets the record straight eternally as readers delve into their realities, where they can deeply feel the emotions within the letters that paint such stark pictures through words. It is written both through the eyes of an inmate with a hearing disability while the coronavirus pandemic unfolds within the walls of a prison as a riot breaks out and through Kelsey’s perspective as she advocates for Cole in the best way that she has ever known how, through writing. It’s a story of love, friendship, and healing that touches on grief, trauma, and making peace with the past while there’s still time. These pages contain references to sexual assault, abuse, and other potentially triggering subjects.