While Love and Exile is basically autobiographical in style and content, it is certainly not the complete story of my life from childhood to my middle thirties, where the book ends. Since many people I describe are still alive, and for a number of personal reasons, I had to change names, dates, and, in some exceptional cases, the course of events. Actually, the true story of a person’s life can never be written. It is beyond the power of literature. The full tale of any life would be both utterly boring and utterly unbelievable.
In the author’s notes to parts of this work, I call the writing spiritual autobiography, fiction set against a background of truth, or contributions to an autobiography I never intend to write. However, if I am given more time, I may try to continue this work in the same manner for the sake of some interested readers and perhaps for a potential biographer who may need help in devising my life story.
As a believer in God and His Providence, I am sure that there is a full record of every person’s life, its good and bad deeds, its mistakes and follies. In God’s archive, in His divine computer, nothing is ever lost.
I.B.S