A Gifted Writer Returns With a Supremely Harrowing Novel Credit.... When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. This novel has been a long time coming. Carolyn Ferrell first emerged on radar screens in 1997 with “Don’t Erase Me,” a book of stories, many about the spiritual if not material resources of underachieving but buoyant and street-smart young people. It was an auspicious debut. One of that collection’s galvanizing stories, “Proper Library,” appeared in the John Updike-edited “Best American Short Stories of the Century.” In the nearly 25 years since, there’s been little but silence. Now, happily, comes this Brooklyn-born writer’s second book, “Dear Miss Metropolitan.”