"Dress Gray"

Editor’s note: Gail Gabrielson is one of our “Book Nook” bloggers and writes “The Book Bag” blog. Below is an excerpt from her review of “Dress Gray” by William A. Ekberg and Susie Ekberg Risher. Read her review, read the book, and discuss it here or on her blog.

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One would expect a book titled, “Dress Gray: The life and times of a West Point Cadet,” to be about West Point, right? It’s much more than that, if you’re William Ekberg and have a daughter, Susie Ekberg Risher of Fargo, for a co-author.

For the most part, “Dress Gray” is a love story. The majority of the book is love letters that Bill Ekberg sent to his girlfriend, Marietta Meyer. Bill and Marietta meet on a blind date at a football game, where Bill must sit with his West Point company, and Marietta must sit elsewhere.

Bill, a plebe at West Point, writes a nice letter introducing himself to Marietta, a student at Wellesley College on the same coast. Most of the letters are ones that Bill sent to Marietta — obviously she saved her letters from Bill. We have a few rough drafts of letters she sent him, which are hard to decipher since they’re reproduced as is. Almost all of “Dress Gray” is formated like a scrapbook … Read Gail’s full review of “Dress Gray.”