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What some may call a gift, others deem a curse, Daniel can speak to the dead, rather, the dead speak to him and he informs them that they are indeed, deceased and they spend a couple of moments chatting while the decedent makes their way towards the ever after, whatever that means to each individual person. This gift, or curse, has mandated Daniel to follow a life of philosophical reasoning, he accepts employment in a community church and eventually attends seminary.
Daniel poses difficult existential questions, an obvious tact for a religious man. What is intuition? Are all actions pre-ordained? Who is God? What is a soul? Buddhists follow a man, not a God, but he found enlightenment. Does this mean Buddhists are wrong in the eyes of the Christians? Is their nirvana enlightenment here on earth and they return to the dust and ashes from which they came? Do Buddhists have souls? And what about Hindu reincarnation? How can a fly really live a good life as a fly to come back as a frog, or moving higher up the food chain, a small mammal? The Scientologists have eight precepts, of those eight, God is listed last, does that mean he is their last priority on this Earth?
Throughout the course of his life, while preaching to the congregation, Daniel is embroiled in many personal relationships, as are most persons. The Church of his congregation is not the happy family that outsiders may prejudicially have pictured in their minds. Political backstabbing and rumor mongering dictate the relationships amongst pastors and staff, involving Daniel in a fairly obvious scandal, forcing him to decide major alterations in the course of his life.
Overall, I would rate this book a 3 out of 4. It was compelling; I really wanted to keep reading to see what was going to happen. And it was refreshing for a character to ponder so many philosophical questions from such a variety of viewpoints in a fictional novel format, it was much more readable than religious text of any sort. However, I did find some of the scene jumping to be mildly phrentic, one paragraph would be extolling the virtues of Allah and the beginning sentence of the next paragraph was a gratuitous sex scene, the frantic jump was a bitter pill to swallow. Additionally, it was not entirely clear what the sex had to do with religion, except that the characters met in the church, but not any church that I have ever attended! And I did wish that the “dead” talent would be explored more, I found it fascinating, but the author introduced it and did not allow for major development, only minor occurrences. I think my only other comment would be that I am not entirely certain as to genre classification. I can see this being classified as religious fiction. Conservative individuals would not call this book religious even though religion is a major theme. Some may call this erotic fiction, but there aren’t enough erotica sections to fit that genre either. And fiction just seems far too bland of a classification. I loved the philosophy and religion in this book, truly. It was a great rummage in the recesses of my memory of late night discussions with good friends, and definitely worth reading again or pondering over the course of time.
I would definitely read another book by this author.
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