Milan Kundera had me at The Unbearable Lightness of Being. After my son spent a post-college eighteen months in Prague, he was hooked, too. He sent me more Kundera novels. Then, on my own, I found Kundera’s nonfiction, The Art of the Novel. In it, he reminds us of the importance of theme and what a character really is. Most important to me, “The novel’s spirit is the spirit of complexity. Every novel says to the reader: ‘things are not as simple as you think.’” Kundera influences me to dig for deeper meaning, to leave my readers a little provoked, a little shaken in the face of uncertainty. Judging by reader reaction, Remarkable Silence has managed to do that.

Thanks, Milan.