“Awoke some mode of coping in my soul… to explore the complex relationships between members of our rather nontraditional family”
“Dear Dale,
I am writing to let you know how important and significant your novel was recently in my life. I picked up your book this summer at a used bookstore in Bayfield, Wisconsin, on a return trip to Madeline Island. We have been vacationing on the island with our family for years and were married there about 20 years ago.
My husband has had to endure two rounds of treatment for prostate cancer that have had an extremely troubling effect on our intimacy and sexual relationship. The climax to the situation occurred this summer as we have been adjusting to the effects of 7 weeks of radiation treatment. Your novel awoke some mode of coping in my soul that, while not solving the situation quickly, has given me a path forward.
In a wider way, the book also helped me to explore the complex relationships between members of our rather nontraditional family that includes a blended family of 5 half-grown brothers and sisters, and one youngest child I had while married to my current husband.
It is important, I think, to mark moments when the work we do affects others, and so in that spirit I am writing you. Thank you.”
—A.L., Reader
