I've just finished reading A Gathering of Doorways by Michael Jasper (sorry it took me so long, Mike!) and I recommend it highly. I haven't enjoyed a book like this one for a long time.

You'll be tempted to read the whole thing at once, after you get started, but don't give in to the temptation. This is a book to savor, chapter by chapter.

He's a wonderfully descriptive author, with an authentic ear for dialogue and an killer instinct for the right word or phrase to evoke the senses: smell, taste, sight, touch, hearing, kinesthetic, esp, all of them, until the reader is fully immersed in the experience.

My expectation was that I would be reading a fantasy novel--and fantastic it is, but much more than that remains for the pleasure of the reader.

It is also authentically autobiographical, an inner biography of a family tragedy. And the sorrow and the love come through loud and clear.

Still, though, I wasn't satisfied with that category, either. Neither fantasy nor autobiography complete the classification of A Gathering of Doorways. As I fell asleep last night, running through the story lines in my head, it came to me: This is an Allegory, in the old-fashioned sense of the term, a series of lessons in the redemptive power of love, the regenerative power of the earth, the freeing power of truth, and more.

Can't give away the story, so I won't say more. But bring your hankie for the ending.