A major piece of jazz scholarship , the book cuts no corners : it reprints a five-page letter to the 9-year-old Desmond written by his father , at a time when his mother 's nervous condition was so bad that young Paul had to be sent across the country to stay with cousins in Westchester County , in New York , and an even longer letter from the 24-year-old Desmond to his father about his anxieties over whether to start playing like Charlie Parker .