This afternoon I have completed my reading of your novel.  Wow!  It is wonderful!

I wish I was still teaching Year 12 English and your novel was on the syllabus; what a goldmine of ethical and philosophical reflection to form the basis of student discussion and writing!  The novel I enjoyed teaching most was Chaim Potok’s, “The Chosen”,  which I taught on at least four occasions. I enjoyed every re-read and the class work which followed.  I could not put your book aside; I felt the necessity to read it as often as possible.  For some reason, I sense a strong connection between Potok’s and your novel.  Their ‘hearts’  are very similar.

There is so much in your book which relates to the experiences of my life that  in imagination I could almost feel that you had written it for me personally.  When I started this email, I envisaged identifying touchstones, ideas and experiences with which I can identify but soon realised that  the process might become a long novel of its own.  Sufficient to say that my work,  my church work with the elderly, my interest in medicine, my younger son’s career in medicine, my wife’s cancer and subsequent death,  responsibility for the the later stages of the lives of elderly relatives,  interest in ethics and the big questions of life, et alia have all endeared the book and its ideas to me.

Heartiest congratulations on a grand literary achievement.