Chaim Potok Follow

No, I don’t read many novels this stark and somber in their beauty. Yes, you do have to have an ear for nuance and the power of what’s unsaid to hear and appreciate the music and poetry behind a narrative like this. And, no, even with my passion for arts and creation, I don’t interpret all the matters here in the same way Asher does.

But I get it. I empathize. And it’s a story that empathizes with me and the kind of impossible pain it’s taken to make me into the creative I am, and am becoming.

A fine, raw, magnificent novel.

“Reb Saunders is a great man, Reuven. Great men are always difficult to understand.”

A truly moving piece of work. I found myself using this Jewish experience to relate to my Christian one–“But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” Having ultimately found it to be a HUMAN experience, I agree with The Wall Street Journal’s remarks on the novel: “Its themes are profound and universal…”

Love, family, friendship, pain, brilliance, compassion–quite a read.