Bashert: A Novel
Herb Freed, director, producer, spiritual leader, and author of Bashert, talks about past interviews with various talk shows, and the deeper questions he didn’t expect to be asked. How did he answer them and what came to mind? Read on for more!
Bashert: A Novel (Bellrock Press) was released on Valentine’s Day. Since that time, I’ve been interviewed by talk show hosts across the country, from Buffalo to Seattle; Des Moines, San Diego, Kingston, NY, Washington, DC, Charlotte, NC and 20 or so cities in between.
Those sessions were always pleasant and I am happy to talk about the book, but occasionally I get asked more probing questions that go beyond the cheerful give-and-take of radio talk shows. There is one set of questions in particular that I would like to share with you. At the end of an hour-long session, the host hit me with three questions I wasn’t prepared for.
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What is Bashert? Is it the story of your life or is it fiction?
That question spun around my brain. After what seemed like a lot of dead air time, I heard myself quote something I had heard from Marion many years ago:
“All biography is fiction…and all fiction is biography.”
In real life, my wife, Marion, and I made films together for 28 years. She wrote and edited the films while I directed and produced. The lead characters in Bashert are named Marion and Dan. She is the writer and film editor and Dan directs.
Does that make Bashert a memoir or biography? No.
Many of the adventures in the novel are variations of real life experiences but they did not occur as described in the novel and therefore appear to be fictional. So, in answer to the question, “What is this novel?”
Bashert is biographical fiction. Even though many of the events were altered, the story is entirely true.
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What did you hope to achieve when you set out to write this book?
How to explain what it is to be driven to write every day for five years?
The simple answer is that I never set out to write a novel. I had never done that and I couldn’t imagine sitting at my computer day after day for all those months and years. But it happened. How? My only explanation: It’s as if my hand was guided.
I moved away from my usually critical mind set and wrote what streamed through my heart and head, eagerly awaiting the end of a page so that I could read what I had written. That excited me so much, I did it the next day…and the next…and the next.
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Why are you, Herb Freed, on this planet at this time?
I’m here to tell my story: the joy, the exhilaration, the glory of love everlasting. Bashert is a story that continues to drive me towards the light. My hope is that I can share this with kindred spirits.
Want to know more? Intrigued by the idea of Bashert? Check out Herb Freed’s novel now!
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