Murray Rosenthal

First, thank you for visiting my Author page. Even the words, ‘Author Page’ seems strange to me as I’ve been identified as many other things; Loving husband (of 32 years), father (two great kids), physician-psychiatrist, researcher, entrepreneur, mentor, adventure traveler, and soon to be inventor (stand by on that one). Fiction author is a new title for me.

Except for a chapter in, ‘If I Were Your Daddy, This Is What You’d Learn’, my writing has been restricted to articles and lectures in medicine, psychiatry, pain management, etc.

‘The Exigent Earth’ began as, ‘A Message from Mother’ and was based upon a recurrent dream i'd begun having 20 years ago. I first told the story to my son while driving to his Indian Guides camp in the desert east of San Diego. Then a nine-year-old, Jonathan and I used our time together to play with the ending and he said, as only a nine-year-old could, ‘now write it down’. After years of making notes about what I saw the dreams came and went and, at one point, I put the story away for a number of years in lieu of a busy career.

My wife and I began our marriage with an adventurous honeymoon in Tibet. Prior to that and following the completion of my residency in 1981, I’d spent 6 months backpacking through Asia. Since that time, Janet and I have been on every continent except for Antarctica. We also have sailed quite a bit over the years. In 2012, we purchased our dream boat, Gizmo a 65' catamaran and, for me, that was quite literal.

For the next four years we sailed (intermittently) from San Diego, through the South Pacific, parts of Asia, Eastern Mediterranean, Northern Europe, Western Caribbean and earlier,even transited the Panama Canal (on our first catamaran). It was aboard Gizmo, sometimes at sea for weeks visiting exotic, off the beaten track places, that the dream returned with great clarity.

This time it the original message melted into what we were observing around us. We noticed something every day and, what was troubling, those changes were even in very remote areas. This time story unfolded with greater urgency, clarity and meaning. I wrote until it was out of me. I don’t care what your religion or politics are, our planet is in deep trouble. But, I’m not a fiction writer and needed help making a really good story meaningful.

Several friends and family read and loved the story line and told me that further character development was needed to give the story deeper meaning to the reader. At my wife’s suggestion, I turned to our friend, Beverly Knauer for help with giving the story more character. She had prior experience publishing two books and did not disappoint. Beverly took the story thru many months of research and painstaking rewrites, expanded the characters' personalities and connectivity. Beverly added Avram and Hannah who tied the main characters together and brought this from an interesting story to a meaningful book.

That’s it for now, I’m sure there will be more to post over time. Should any of you want to know more of the sailing adventures, walking with the Maisa in Kenya, hiking the jungles of Rwanda to see the silverback gorillas, visiting ashrams in India, flying in and out of remote air strips in Namibia to see some of the most primitive peoples in the world, camping with the eagle hunters in Northwest Mongolia; I’d be happy to share more and even post a few photos. Meanwhile, we're off to Bhutan and Northern India for our next adventure. At 74 y/o, I’m not finished yet. Hope you enjoy the book.

Dr Murray Rosenthal, January, 2019