Dear Nathan,
This is an attempt to thank you for your book. Let me say at the very outset, I believe that you are a very good writer and that everyone should read "The Shock of the Fall". When I had read the first page I knew that you could write, and write well. By the time I had read about 50 pages I tweeted you to say I was enjoying the book. That was true at the time, but now I have finished the book and I realise that that was an inadequate comment! Before I retired I was a Church Minister. I have lost count of the number of times people shook hands with me after a service and said, "I enjoyed your sermon". Often that was the wrong response! The sermon was meant to challenge and make the hearer reexamine previously held views. It was meant to make them uncomfortable. It was certainly not meant to be enjoyed. If you enjoyed it you had missed the point! By the time I reached the end of your book I had been made to reexamine my views of grief, on guilt and culpability, on death and mental illness. This was not a pleasant business. I did not enjoy it. But I am very glad I read the book. I don't want to include any details of the book because that would spoil it for potential readers.
In the Q & A session at the end of the book you are asked, "What would you like the reader to take away from your novel?" to which you reply,"A desire to share it." I do desire to share it! Hopefully some who read my blog will take my advice and make the effort to read it. It will be well worth the effort and they will be glad they did.
To conclude, Nathan, thankyou for a most stimulating and challenging book. I am so glad that I read it and I await with eager anticipation reading more of your writing.
Sincerely,
Clive.
