Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Any book which focuses on father - son relationships pulls on my heartstrings which will be forever taut.  But not every book makes it to my thoughts and resonates with my beliefs so thoroughly.  The purpose of Speaker for the Dead, is stated by the author:  to make a book which would tell the truth about someone's life, not a saint, but someone who is utterly cruel and evil.  Of course that's paraphasing and the book is about way more than I feel like writing tonight but it's interesting anyway.  Why would an author want to write the truth about someone cruel?  He said because the cruelest thing someone can do after a person dies is lie about them in order to remake their life to how you see fit.  That erases who they are which truly kills them.  The hardest thing to do is tell the truth even though you know it will cause much pain and possibly much suffering to do it.  He describes the pain like unto a hot iron which cauterizes a wound.  The truth will eliminate the lies and the cycle or patterns of life we've set up to carry those lies will also be eliminated.  This book is about exactly that.  The truth will eliminate destructive patterns.  Why?  The author explains that as well.  Knowing the truth allows love to take form.  We were not made to love lies, we were made to love the truth.  It is our foundation and so knowing a truth is really recognizing what we already knew to be true, it is knowing ourself, and it is knowing our Maker.  Try it out sometime, if there is anyone or anything you feel anger and hate towards, spend sometime getting to know the truth about them.  I bet you come away much richer from the experience than if you decided to build that hate into your life.