Save Send Delete

by Danusha V. Goska

Save Send Delete is a debate about God between polar opposites: Mira, a poor, Catholic professor and Rand, an atheist author and celebrity. It s based on a true story. Mira reveals gut-level emotions and her inner struggles to live fully and honestly and to laugh in the face of extraordinary ordeals. She shares experiences so profound, so holy, they force us to confront our beliefs in what is true and possible. Rand hears her; he understands her; he challenges her ideas; he makes her more of herself. The book is in essence a love story. What emerges from these eternal questions is not so much about God, but what faith means to us, and ultimately, what we mean to each other. The writing is exquisite. There are pages of this manuscript that I want to highlight and keep close to me on my nightstand. It is filled with wisdom from sources I don t normally draw on: The wisdom of the Bible, the Talmud, the Vedas, Twelve Step programs, and mostly, the wisdom of Mira.

Genres: Fiction, Religion

299 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2012

About the author

I'm the author of "Save Send Delete" and that book tells you more about me than you might ever want to know.

Reviews

[Julie Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I became excited when Moyers identified you as a skeptic who questions everything. I actually put down my fork and stopped chewing my pasta fazool. I question everything, and I find that makes me very lonely. If you want to talk about Islam and terror, for example, you know that the Politically Correct, self-identitied "Patiots" won't allow any critical statements about US petro-dependency. Abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage: people bring so many agendas to these matters that real, probing questions are never asked or answered. But you were as dogmatic in your atheism as a Monty Python parody of a pope.

One night after watching a celebrity atheist on a talk show, devout Catholic Mira does the unthinkable. She sends him a long, forceful, clever email that she knows will never get past his secretary. Except that he answers. And he won't let her off the hook with a polite apology.

We see only Mira's side of the correspondence, which soon pulls us into her life, their growing friendship, and doesn't let anyone off the hook in considering faith, love, and what it means to be human. "Save Send Delete" refers to what Mira chooses to do after she's written each email we've read. I was delighted by the way this clever device let us see not only Mira's actual email but her inner thoughts as she hesitated or deleted what she'd written.

Monday 1:20 a.m.
Rand! Good grief, I see that you've written back already. I can't read that right now.

I was drifting off to sleep and I remembered. In my first e-mail to you I called you a "git" and a "wanker." And here I am chastising you for stereotyping me.

But that was so long ago Rand, and we are different people now, and we're doing something different here, aren't we? And it hurts when you refuse to see me.

SAVE send delete

Monday 1:34 a.m.

save SEND delete

I cannot possibly do this book justice. But, of course, you know that's not going to stop me from trying.

The book is a thinly fictionalized version of what really happened to author Danusha Goska. However, don't let that give you pause. It is a finely crafted work of literature, no matter the origin of the ideas conveyed.

It is going on my 2013 Best Books list.

I was really excited reading the first half of the book because I related to the conversations. I've been blogging long enough to have had many long email exchanges about faith or lack thereof. I was cheering in Mira's section as she said all the things that intelligent Christians know and sometimes would like to hurl at unthinking atheists smugly giving knee-jerk answers. (And know this now, there are as many unthinking, knee-jerk atheists out there as there are unthinking, knee-jerk Christians. No group is exempt from this.)

Mira makes her points respectfully, with credit given where it is due, but she doesn't back down. She is adamant about truth being shown and acknowledged by all sides. And, of course, that's another thing I loved about this book. Truth, honesty ... those are hard qualities to come by.

Watching Mira struggle to keep conversations honest was fascinating and taught me some valuable lessons. I want to stress here, that this book is not just for Christians. Both Goodreads and Amazon contain 5-star reviews from all sorts of believers and doubters. All praise Danusha Goska's writing and thinking in this book.

The second part of the book changes in tone as Mira and Rand grow closer and more honest with each other. It becomes less about intellectual answers and more about real life, about finding God or meaning in life when times are hard. This was when the spotlight turned on me and it wasn't comfortable.

It is not that I pulled back or wasn't engaged with the book. It was as if I were reading that other very different yet also great book, The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, which this section of the book made me think of for some reason. Mira's life has been hard and it made me realize how very fortunate my own life is. I always know my life is fortunate, but there is a tendency to think one's life is more difficult than it actually is. When one comes up against real hardship, it holds up the mirror, shakes us up (just as the prophets were sent to shake the people up), and gives the corrected perspective so that one may continue. This tendency is actually discussed very compassionately by Mira in a section about house-sitting for a professor.

I couldn't put the book down, as Mira and Rand's story propelled me forward. I spent a good deal of time pondering my actions versus mere lip service (none of us are exempt from our unthinking, knee-jerk moments, remember?). And that's a good thing.

Ultimately, the core message of Save Send Delete is one we all understand. We want to be seen, to be heard, to be known for who we really are, deep down. It is that which we hope and strive for from friends, family, loved ones. The lack of being known devastates us when we have trusted someone deeply enough to allow ourselves to become vulnerable. That is the ultimate betrayal.

What Christians find in God, in Jesus Christ, is that He knows us, in a way we don't even know ourselves. And when He breaks through so that we can recognize it, we are stunned and overwhelmed.

That is why words are so inadequate.

Usually.

Danusha Goska's words ... her original, insightful story ... is up to the task.

Do not miss this book.

[Karen A. Wyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I neared the end of Danusha Goska's Save Send Delete, I started pondering what rating to assign it. I thought I would give it four stars, but when I finished the last page and my Kindle prompted me for a rating, I found myself giving it five. This is not a perfect book, and if five stars imply perfection, I apologize -- but it is a fascinating, moving, and profoundly thought-provoking work, and I was quite reluctant to admit it was over. (I am now rereading a book I could recite in my sleep, as a transition to moving on.)

If I understood the Preface correctly, Save Send Delete is a lightly fictionalized memoir, an account of an email exchange that became a virtual relationship between a woman and a man. The woman: Mira, a Polish-American Catholic, widely traveled, a PhD and teacher with serious health problems that have wreaked havoc with her personal and professional life. The man: Rand (short for a long name-plus-title), a well-off British aristocrat, author and raconteur, known for consistently defending atheism as superior to any form of religion.

The title reflects the form of the narrative. We see Mina's emails to Rand, as well as the emails she doesn't send (deletes) and those about which she vacillates before sending (saves). We are left to infer the content and style of Rand's replies. We are also shown exchanges between Mina and a friend, Amanda, about whom there is more to say -- which I'll refrain from saying.

Mira's and Rand's correspondence focuses on the subjects of religion and what one could call supernatural experience, but through that lens, it examines a wide range of subjects: suffering, love, hate, friendship, and how one can and cannot help one's fellows, to name a few.

Among the insights to which this book led me, by what indirect route I cannot recall: while I am an agnostic, and find all established religions unconvincing, I could not have written my novel Wander Home, set in a rather enticing afterlife, if I were absolutely convinced that no such afterlife could possibly exist.

So why do I call the book imperfect? At times, I felt that Mina ran on longer than necessary, or repeated herself in ways I could do without. These were minor and transitory annoyances, and they do not prevent me from heartily recommending this book.

[Danuta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Save Send Delete is an epistolary novel for the digital age. Mira is an adjunct professor at an American university (read poorly-paid, insecure). She sees a well-known pundit on a TV show expounding the case for his own atheism and e-mails him. Her e-mail is witty, combative and insulting, comparing their relevant statuses, and insisting on her right to equal time to present her own case as a questioning, deeply spiritual Christian. To her amazement, he replies.

What follows is a developing relationship between Mira and the English, aristocratic Rand, conducted by e-mail. The reader sees only Mira’s e-mails and must gauge Rand from her responses to what he says. These can range from: ‘That’s not what I said,’ and ‘I didn’t say that either,’ to accounts of the milestones in her life that cause her to believe as she does, her travels, the glories of the different faiths, and their attendant darkness.

Mira knows, only too well, that anything human will contain darkness. Her own life has enough of this, but it also has loves, friendships, journeys: the terrorist who proposed marriage, the Prom where the boy she wanted (Justin, an uptight WASP) goes with a girl of his own ilk (who wears orange lipstick to complement her gown as Justin proudly notes). Mira’s partner is Imre, ‘a Hungarian-American drug dealer and spiritual seeker who did bare knuckle push-ups on gravel.’ Such vignettes give the reader vivid images of Mira, her life and her views.

The e-mails also explore the multiplicity and transcendence of human faith. The book is, in itself, an education in the background and beliefs of many of the world’s greatest religions – their strengths and their weaknesses, though this isn’t a text book of comparative religions, nor is it a ‘Sophie’s World’ for theology students: these are Mira’s views, strongly held and powerfully argued.

Goshka makes good use of the e-mail form. We see, with each one Mira writes, whether she sends it, saves it or deletes it. Mira, who can and will fight with anyone in pursuit of honesty, finds love a terrifying emotion. A whole page consists of stuttering starts and blanknesses that are deleted one by one: ‘Dear Rand’ (Delete) ‘Dear Rand’ (delete) Blank e-mail (delete). At one point she writes: ‘You’re very funny. Even when you’re being a radioactive, mutant, asshole.’ What she sends is: ‘You’re very funny.’ Rand may never receive these deleted mails, but the reader gains insights and understandings into Mira’s life and world as much by what she doesn’t say (to others) as what she does say.

Goshka introduces variety into the voice and perspective by giving snatches of e-mail correspondence with Amanda, a close friend of Mira’s who, with both a cynicism about the world born from experience and genuine warmth that comes from her love for Mira, advises, comments and supports in her bitty, scatty mails. In these brief extracts scattered through the book, Goshka creates the real strength of women’s friendships – but even here, Mira does not always say everything she might want to say. Even mails to Amanda get amended or deleted.

Save, Send, delete is narrative and didactic, satirical, lyrical and moving. At one point Mira says to Rand: ‘Well, aren’t you the little kamikaze pilot,’ in another pleads, ‘Convince me that there is no God.’ She talks about the poverty and deprivation she has seen in the world, even in the over-privileged west: the student who cannot escape from the father who is beating him, Jim Zwerg, the white Freedom Rider who allowed himself to be singled out for brutal assault by the Klan, and the attempt of the nurse to protect him later when there is danger of further attack by the mob – she gives him extra anaesthesia so he won’t suffer if they lynch him.

Mira (and Goshka – she is very clear that this book is written from personal experience) has no illusions about both the depths to which human beings can sink, and the heights they can achieve.

This is fiction pushed to the limit. Goshka does not compromise, and the result is a very readable, thought-provoking and moving book.

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Amazon review is here - http://www.amazon.com/review/R6QIQW20...

This is an unusual book of apologetics.

There are other "correspondence-style" books that consist of the exchange of correspondence between believer and non-believer, or between varieties of non-believers. Such books used to consist of exchanges of letters, but e-mails have taken over. What these books have in common is that they are published with the agreement of both sides and the "form" of the exchange is only in the background.

This book is far different from the norm. In this book, the reader sees only one side of the exchange, that of the believer, the non-believer's side being omitted out of a respect for his privacy. This format makes the presentation "choppy" and sometimes requires the interpolation of information from subsequent emails to make sense of the topics referenced in prior emails. This "choppy" reading experience is common to anyone with experience reading another person's email chain (as a lawyer, I know this experience), and there are times when I really, really wished I could see what the non-believer had written.

The book is also unusual in being a kind of roman a clef. The author insists that this is a real email exchange with a real atheist doyen. She calls the atheist Lord Randolph Court-Wright, Marquis of Alnwick, "Rand" for short, and offers clues to his identity - English, tall, good-looking, on television - which are tempting clues. (She also provides interludes with her friend, an actress who - maybe - accepted the role of DA in Batman.).) Take the clues at face value..or not.

The book opens with the author sending a long email upbraiding "Rand" for things he said as part of a Bill Moyers' presentation. Moyers had introduced Rand as a "skeptic," but, as is typical of the modern variety of "skeptic, but as Goska observes “But you were as dogmatic in your atheism as a Monty Python parody of a pope.” Goska challenges Rand with the fact that Western science has always been braided with religious Commitment. Goska also challenges Rand’s manhood by arguing that his commitment to atheism may just have a lot to do with being a sexual and social loser in the high school hierarchy. (She also mentions Jung’s “synchronicity” in her first email, which will come back in a later email.)

Goska, or the character in her book - I honestly could not tell if these emails were entirely bona fide or invented - is surprised – shocked! mortified! – when Rand responds.

One of the interesting features of the modern internet age is how the mythic/legendary figures that we never used to interact with suddenly pop up on the internet as real human beings with real feelings. As an Amazon reviewer, I know how it feels when the living person who bled and fought to put their thoughts and feeling into a text reaches out to critique my critique of their work.

The email conversation then takes off in the usual direction that emails conversations take – everywhere, i.e., the existence of God, the problem of evil, the meaning of life, etc.

Goska is not in any sense a trained Christian apologist, and I suspect that she has absolutely no desire to be a Christian apologist in any formal sense. She is, however, a thinking person and a Catholic and she has thought about the great questions from her life experience as reflected through the prism of lived Catholicism. This makes her presentation substantially different from the normal “debates” that these kinds of books take. Most of her arguments do not fall in the great patterns of apologetic arguments, which may be why Rand probably found countering her arguments baffling (and she is not afraid of simply telling Rand that his arguments are nonsense, which must have been a new experience for him.) For example, in what I thought was the best part of the book, after Rand raised the atheist’s chestnut of the “problem of evil” – which they can milk for all its emotional worth – Goska appealed to her own experience of suffering – and that of people she knows – to turn the emotional appeal around on him:

“Atheists like you say that you can’t believe in God because there is so much suffering in the world. That’s imperialism. You presume to speak for others, others who do not want you to speak for them. You start with the Holocaust. Fair enough. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who rescued Jews. Not only was she still a Christian after her imprisonment in the Ravensbruck concentration camp, she prayed for, and received, God’s gift of forgiveness when one of the cruelest camp guards approached her after the war. Oswald Rufeisen, a Jewish survivor, became a monk. Elie Weisel, who survived Auschwitz, believes.”

Atheists point to suffering from the outside, not the inside. We all do. We look at a person who has been crippled and we wonder how he could live that way because we can’t imagine ourselves living that way, but people do get crippled and they find joy and love – and, yes, even value – in their life as it exists. Atheists are good at expressing the horror of suffering, but they may not understand suffering from their privileged outsider perspective.

As someone who lives in the inner city and teaches the disadvantaged, and because of her own health care issues, Goska appreciates the significance of analyzing suffering from the inside. That perspective allows one of the best paragraphs on the subject I have ever read:

“Ninety percent of the suffering people I know choose, not to work their way out of the Hell to which fate has condemned them, but to upholster it. My students, my friends, visibly, actively choose to exacerbate the most hated features of their lives. Dating an abusive man? Heck, why not up the ante and get pregnant by him. Working a dead-end job? Here’s a great idea – start drinking. That will really improve things. Lost everything in a flood, fire, war, and brokenhearted over that? A suggestion – don’t, whatever you do, move on; don’t enjoy the present moment. Cling to your memories of what is gone, and your sense of yourself as a victim.”

I know a lot of people who suffer because they are in the business of “upholstering” their own private Hell. (This is not a question of blaming individuals; it is a question of recognizing human nature.)

Goska also makes the common sense observation:

“It wasn’t suffering per se that made me a better person. It was my response to it. I had two choices: to be sucked under, to become a monster from which my best self would recoil, or to strive to keep my head above water. As best as I was able, I chose the latter – I strove. I approached every feature of my suffering: loneliness, pain, paralysis, despair, terror, rage, waste, poverty, as an obstacle on a course I was running for my own spiritual growth in the eyes of God – and, nobody else. That choice is what made all the difference.”

Atheists, of course, argue that God could have done it different – he could have made self-improvement a matter of scoring well on tests or something equally trite, which never answers the question of whether this would actually end suffering; perhaps, the new standard of suffering would be “failing a test.”

Atheists don’t answer the problem of suffering so much as make suffering meaningless. A Christian – specifically, a Catholic Christian – accepts that the reason God uses suffering is not known to us presently but accepts that God must have a good reason for it, particularly since He suffered in his humanity in the Passion and the Crucifixion. In my own time of suffering, I discovered Pope John II’s Salvifici Dolores, in particular this passage:

“8. In itself human suffering constitutes as it were a specific "world" which exists together with man, which appears in him and passes, and sometimes does not pass, but which consolidates itself and becomes deeply rooted in him. This world of suffering, divided into many, very many subjects, exists as it were "in dispersion". Every individual, through personal suffering, constitutes not only a small part of that a world", but at the same time" that world" is present in him as a finite and unrepeatable entity. Parallel with this, however, is the interhuman and social dimension. The world of suffering possesses as it were its own solidarity. People who suffer become similar to one another through the analogy of their situation, the trial of their destiny, or through their need for understanding and care, and perhaps above all through the persistent question of the meaning of suffering. Thus, although the world of suffering exists "in dispersion", at the same time it contains within itself a. singular challenge to communion and solidarity.”

And:

“29. Following the parable of the Gospel, we could say that suffering, which is present under so many different forms in our human world, is also present in order to unleash love in the human person, that unselfish gift of one's "I" on behalf of other people, especially those who suffer. The world of human suffering unceasingly calls for, so to speak, another world: the world of human love; and in a certain sense man owes to suffering that unselfish love which stirs in his heart and actions. The person who is a " neighbour" cannot indifferently pass by the suffering of another: this in the name of fundamental human solidarity, still more in the name of love of neighbour. He must "stop", "sympathize", just like the Samaritan of the Gospel parable. The parable in itself expresses a deeply Christian truth, but one that at the same time is very universally human.”

An atheist might hand-waive about the evolutionary significance of “compassion,” but confining it to a purely material world is a challenge.

And this is what happens to Rand when he is forced to explain to a suffering person why that suffering person should not end her suffering by suicide – he fails and lapses back into the numinous. Goska responds:

“ME: You can use all the big words you want, Rand. I’ve got a thesaurus, same as you. But if you boil it down and put it in plain English, there is NOTHING materialist about your argument. You are chickening out and adopting the stance of a believer in a transcendent reality. “Precious,” “sacred,” “the dignity of the human person” – did you think I would not notice that you lifted that phrase straight from the Vatican? “a whole which transcends” – you even use the word!!! – “the sum of its parts.” “Spirit” !!! Oh, Mister Man, you are in a world of trouble. The Vocabulary Police levy WEIGHTY fines when an atheist uses the word “spirit.””

I have always felt that atheists should be fined when they use words like “progress” in the sense of achieving a “better” state closer to some “goal” since there can be no such thing in atheism.

This exchange rang true for me. Atheists – at least the modern “New” variety – are deconstructionists. Their game consists of shifting the burden and announcing how they don’t find evidence persuasive, actually they refuse to consider evidence as “evidence.” Their intellectual muscles have atrophied, but they don’t know it because they can smuggle in Christian concepts into their arguments as if those concepts didn’t have a Christian substructure. In fact, Goska gets an admission from Rand that would never happen in a formal setting:

“He caved in and confessed that, yes, he doesn’t know how to craft a purely materialist defense of the value of human life – we had been talking about that – and then he changed, jumped, from one tone to another.”

On which point, I found Goska’s points about God to be eminently satisfying to my Catholic sensibilities (honed as they are by decades of reading Aquinas). Here is one:

“On the other hand, I don’t believe in a God who, the moment you cast your lot in with him, or read that bestseller about the power of positive thoughts, makes you happy, pretty, and rich. I do believe that there is a supernatural entity who can make you feel 100 % better instantaneously, and his name is Satan. Feeling angry? Smash in someone’s face. In pain? Inject heroin. Poor? Steal. All sins provide quite the rush. Nine out of ten hedonists and ten out of ten cowards recommend Satan as their deity of choice.”

Everyone suffers; Christ suffered; deal with it.

Another one:

“The students in my folklore classes read myths from various cultures, and, especially if they’re also reading authors like you, they dismiss all myths with a wave of the hand and a comment like, “It’s all the same nonsense.” It isn’t all the same and it isn’t all nonsense. These verses communicate the unique identity of the Judeo-Christian God. Our God is not Ba‘al or Tiamat or Apollo or Allah. Our God is the Word – logos – truth and reason.

The village Hinduism I knew was typified by stories in which a not particularly good or even observant man accidentally engaged in an act that was similar to worship, and reaped rewards thereby. One example: the village drunk got lost in the forest and began to cry over his fate. His tears wet the exposed tip of a Shiva lingam, most of which was buried underground. The man didn’t see it, had no intention of worshiping, and was not conscious of weeping on a lingam, but his tears were close enough to the libations a pious person would spill that Shiva rewarded the man anyway. A tale: a Brahmin leaves his wife for a prostitute, kills his parents, and eats taboo foods. One day he accidentally overhears a sermon about Shiva. When he dies, the god of death comes to carry him off to deserved punishment for all of his heinous crimes, but Shiva intervenes and takes the sinner to Mount Kailas, close to heaven. The moral is very blunt: all that matters to the gods is that they get what they want – worship – by hook or by crook.”

The slogan “Our God is not Ba‘al or Tiamat or Apollo or Allah. Our God is the Word – logos – truth and reason” is one that I want to memorize.

Obviously, I am doing extended quotations because there is so much of this book that I want to remember.

A frustrating part of the book was the weird prurient romanticism of the book. Anyone who has been involved in internet dating should have been able to recognize the signs from the first email. The flirtatiousness that turned into what seems to have been an obscene letter at the end. Goska clearly identified where Rand was coming from in her first letter – a frustrated wannabe Casanova who now has the notoriety and can live out his teenage fantasies….but so ineptly. The flirtation went both ways and even developed to the extent of the two planning to meet in Paris, when Rand suddenly discovers that he and his wife – previously a heartless, alienating bitch – “can work things out.” As a person with not an insignificant amount of experience in internet dating – and having listened to women talk about their internet dating experiences – this is such a cliché that I don’t understand how Goska could not have seen it coming from the second email.

I found this part of the book “weak,” but – hey! – if it is real life, and this part seems like real life, then one of the doyens of atheism is a “macher” and a “perv,” which shouldn’t be surprising because notwithstanding the “Mr. Spock” air of logical detachment that they want to exude, we can see in the real life antics of Richard Carrier and Michael Shermer, that at heart, they are still the lonely teenage boys with acne who never got to date the prom queen.

This is an unusual book of apologetics. It is worth reading. It’s also fun, apart from the pervy creep factor of the famous atheist engaging in what looks like “grooming behavior."

[Emma Ludlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not particularly a fan of epistolary style writing, especially when you are reading only from one persons angle. I found that although I was frustrated that I didn't know exactly what Rand was writing to Mira, it made me think, and look between the lines and use my imagination. I can't actually remember the last book I read, if any, that has made me truly concentrate on what the author has written/not written. She has inspired me to go and read all the references, I actually googled Rembrandt to view the painting as Mira is discussing it with Rand. I am not a believer in God personally, however, I'm no atheist either, but the logical arguments and supporting anecdotes made me contemplate the possibilities, it is so powerfully written. I just wish that perhaps the last word had been send.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most unique and amazing reading experiences I've ever had.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow I have not disliked a book in a long time, but for me the format of emails was nauseating and boring, some confessional like truth but once again I could not get into this.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some books that you pick up, read, think, "that was nice," and go on with your life. Then there are others that capture your imagination all the way through and make you wrestle with questions long after you put it down. Save Send Delete is decidedly one of the latter.

Even if I were gifted with the kind of mind that could follow the painstaking, philosophical steps Thomas took to justify belief in God, I would not believe in God because of Thomas' steps. ... I'm of the lower orders. I believe in God for the same reason I believe in anything: its impact on my flesh.

What you'll find within is neither world's most orthodox presentation of Catholic doctrine nor a gleeful and definitive beat-down of atheism, something I was afraid a "Catholic nobody emails famous atheist celebrity" semi-autobiographic novel might attempt to be. Rather, through Mira's half of a three-year e-mail correspondence, what you'll discover is an gracious, intimate, and honest look at one woman's incredible journey of life and belief. Mira (like, I suspect, her real-world counterpart Ms. Goska) understands what it means to live in the tension of the best and worst humanity can offer - without losing faith.

~~~~~~~
A quick note about the Kindle edition - it made the email format a little wonky in a few places, but not so much that I found it a distraction from the text.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intelligently written by an author who has traveled extensively. The story is based in fact but isn't strictly nonfiction, I understand. I loved the writing. It's hard to believe anyone would write such lengthy emails to another person, pages and pages. The format is emails from the author to another person, without benefit of the other person's responses, explained briefly in the Preface. This wasn't a 5-star story for me but the writing was. Emotions came through clearly. An online "relationship" develops between the author and a famous person, who is never revealed. We learn much about the author's life and sufferings, but not so much about the other person. Just enough to make it intriguing. The dialog is mostly about religion as the other person is atheist and the author is Catholic and very religious in spirit anyway. A believer. They debate, we must presume, in a gentle and yet pointed sort of way. Then feelings come to the surface and change the conversation. If you read this, pay attention to the Save Send Delete at the end of each email. Not all message are Sent.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I found it to be un-believably faith affifrming, moving, emotional, and un-expected. Ms. Goska's stories captured me so completely right from the start and made me look at myself and how I live out my faith. Without giving any spoilers, I was surprised by what she reveals towards the end of the book, not that it has a 'twist' conclusion, but it was truly un-expected. She is a survivor and I am inspired by her to be a better Christian, a better Catholic, a better person. She is one talented writer, and I only took so long to read this book because I didn't want it to end.

[Denise Barney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this.book. I enjoyed the apologetics, the stories, and the way Ms. Goska relates several religious traditions with the Catholic faith.

Mira is a fascinating character, someone I could listen to over a bottle of wine. Her adventures are fascinating, her life hard, yet beautiful and full of amazing experiences.

The ending was a bit of a comedown; however, there is a lot to mull over.

[Krystyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and original book. Very highly recommended reading.

[Shane Hill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't really rate this book very highly....It was a email dialogue between a Catholic and Atheist but at times it was hard to tell if the Catholic was of the faith....She began her story by telling us that she didn't believe in Judgement or Hell.....so I thought to myself, why is she even trying to convince this atheist scientist when she believes all unrepentant souls will be in the Lord's Kingdom one day?

Really....what is her point in trying to defend Catholic Christianity? Anyways there were some thoughtful exchanges and by the end of the book , the Catholic writer tells us she fears eternity? Well I guess if your not sure of your Salvation, that would be something to be concerned about but that contradicts her earlier Universalism .....

This is not an Orthodox defense of Christianity by any means....and I say that as someone that is not a Catholic basher....there have been great Catholic Christians throughout the ages.....I will give the author some leeway as perhaps she is still searching and hopefully will find a firmer foundation on to which she needs to be.....

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book on the big questions. Wish I had the ability to praise it with intellect and emotion.

Loved this book on the big questions. Wish I had the ability to praise it with intellect and emotion.
Yes

[Toni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Save Send Delete is an epistolary novel based on the author's life experiences. However, throughout the book , we only get to read the letters/e-mails written by the author, a catholic professor, and not the emails written by her pen-pal, an atheist. So we must infer his opinions and arguments via her responses to his notes.For me , I would have preferred the give and take of the conversation. I feel that I would have become more engaged with the characters. I know that the author did not feel it was ethical for her to share his actual emails, name, etc. but it could have been novelized and his true identity should have been protected. I enjoyed the first third of the book and the many discussions and comparisons of various world religions and religious beliefs. These discussions made me think about the similarities and differences between not only the faith structure but about the people themselves who believe in one or any of them.
If the book had gone on in this vein yet became more specific to the author's experiences I would have enjoyed it but then the feel of the book changed. I believe that it then became a romantic obsession (not a romance by any means) and not a philisophical discussion between believer and non-believer. It also started to read like a dry lecture mixed in with a schizophrenic love affair. Since we never got to hear his voice, it was a so called love affair between 2 opposites who don't meet. Would she have loved him if his google picture were of a deformed , physically unattractive woman? Would she have fallen in love with any one who responded to her emails.I didn't feel the love but that is such a personal emotion that is it often difficult to understand why two people fall in love but if you are telling me your story make me believe, make me feel it.
And I am not going to discuss the Amanda emails, because that would be a long "spoiler" discussion.
The tag line " a poor catholic schoolteacher , an atheist celebrity - a debate-a love story-Is there a God in heaven-is there love in human hearts?" drew me in . But then it spit me out with no answers , leaving me with my own personal premise of is the difference between believers and non-believers just a matter of faith. Faith, a gift from a god .Some of us were born with it , some of us were not. And no fantastical story will give us faith. You just believe, sometimes in spite of the fantastical story. Some of us need* it* to lead good lives, some of us can lead good lives despite the lack of *it* .We are not good people ( the faithful) and bad people ( the faith-less), Let us be judged on how we live our lives.
I believe author has led a fascinating and fulfilling life. She seems highly educated and a thinker, which I can't but admire. I would enjoy sitting in one of her classes if she were discussing comparative religions and her life experiences with them. I wanted to love this book. I did enjoy, as I previously stated some of the food for thought. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite what I had hoped it to be. Was it a philisophical discusssion, was it a memoir, was it a love story, was it a novel, was it the ramblings of a broken heart ( if that were it , next time, let time heal a little before you write outside the pages of your diary).?I admire the writer and her strength in her beliefs... in her faith. I apologize for this review but it is honest. I would consider something else by the author and I also know that many will love this book. It just depends on what you are looking for.

[James Chappell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful

This is not an apologetic for the existence of God. The author is Catholic, but her arguments with the aristocratic-physicist-atheist Rand only serve, amidst their banter (which you see only Danusha's side of and have to infer what Rand wrote), to explain how Danusha struggles with the suffering in the world and in her own life. She doesn't flinch and is, from what I could infer of Rand's side of the argument, a more than adequate foil for his charms. This is not a warm and fuzzy read, and like I said, not an apologetic, but you do feel a connection between the two and sympathise with both. The ending is bittersweet and all the better for it, and you really get the sense that they changed each other for the better.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still mulling this one over. Some very insightful sections, a window into a life that is far from my own experience. I read it all at a dash in three sittings partly because it's not broken up into parts - just one long series of emails. It's not my kind of ending, but how else could it end? The story is seems to be a revelation of the building of genuine intimacy but then...it's not.
The author of this autobiographical book is a professing Catholic. She has experience, both lively, honest faith and lively, honest difficulties, and a searching mind. Her understanding of sexuality is not fundamentally Catholic and her expression of it is a little crass.

[Heidi Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Danusha V. Goska is an extremely talented writer. I began reading this book while I was in the midst of a deep personal transformation. I got through the other side of my transformation before I finished the book; since my perspective completely shifted in the interim, I became less personally invested in the book's subject matter: a conversation between a Christian and an atheist, However, my personal landing place did not and does not alter my respect or admiration for Goska's work.

[Mike Erickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting take on inter-religious dialogue.