This is a letter from a lost boy in search of his life calling. I read your book Ishmael and I thought I had found the one thing that could give me a rewarding life. I wrote a letter in response to the Author’s note and it was returned to me saying that the current address was no longer in use.

I was extremely disappointed. I then found the sequel My Ishmael and once again had hope. I feel like Jeffrey from the latter. Through my whole life I have searched for those illusive questions that everyone looks for but can find no answer. One of those questions is “How do we live?” I think that my life is meant to be in pursuit of a better American society.

Now my question is how? If your movement could have use for a dreamer like me I would like to hear from you. I am willing to move to wherever I could be needed. I hope to hear from you in the near future.

I recently saw a show on the Discovery Channel that attempted to explore the life of a tribal society (though for the life of me I cannot remember their name). In that group, young women are married off by their fathers to men they have never met.

The young women are guarded day and night (and this reminded me of the tale of the adulterous wife in one of your books, but in this case the women are not loosely guarded, they are FIERCELY guarded), and many young women choose to take their lives, since they are not capable of flight as an alternative to marrying the men they have been assigned to.

I have mixed feelings here. How can I hold true to a “there is no one right way for a people to live” philosophy while still regreting that here is a society that unnecessarily sheds life because of one of the rules of its culture.

Taker culture says that they should not do this. How can I say that it is “OK because it is THEIR culture” without sounding like some sort of monster?

I’m 14 years old, and i live in southeastern michigan. The main reason im writing you is because i cant get people to take anything involved with saving the earth seriously. when i say people i mean the kids in my class, but it scares me that if people take that attitude towards these kinds of issues then we’re pretty well doomed.

its not that i want to tell them how they should live there lives, its that i want them to at least try to understand what were in for if we continue to treat our world this way. i am hoping that since most of them will have read Ishmael by the time i go back to school, that it will have had some kind of impact on them.

i dont really know what kind of response im expecting or if im going to get one, but i just wanted to see if there’s any way i can get people to listen to me and you and all the others that seek freedom from the doom that is sure to come upon our world.

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