The Book

Spanning more than four decades, this novel traces a love that endures across a long stretretch of time. Its central figures make choices for reasons that are not sound, and the book looks at how those decisions can shape a life long after they are made.

At its core is a distinction between ego and spirit, or between the human self and the soul. The author suggests that the ego is what makes us human, while the spirit is what forms the soul. Love that is truly unconditional, the book argues, can only be fully realized once the ego has loosened its hold and the spirit takes its place.

The story follows two people who are ruled by their egos and who are gradually drawn toward something beyond themselves. Love appears in this book in many places and forms, and the author suggests that signs of it are always present, waiting to be noticed. As a reader begins to recognize them, the book offers the assurance that existence does not end, and that only the ego dies.