"If you feel like you're in the middle of a remarkable transit, this means you will have a spiritual toll to pay soon. The heaviest outcomes appear when you're closer to enlightenment." – Wen Bao Zhu
10 Deep Footprints by Lüset Kohen Fins GATE
book review by Lee Ware
A book that is part novel and part self-help, 10 Deep Footprints tells the story of the interconnectedness between six very different characters and how their lives intersect and influence one another. Through seemingly coincidental interactions, Chloe Franklin rises to international success as a talk show host. Upon hearing the news that a self-help guru has died, she calls together the four people from her past that helped shape her career and invites them to be guests on her upcoming show to discuss the death of the guru. The out of the blue request sends all of them into the reflection of how their relationships to one another and to the late Wen Bao Zhu created the lives they are now living.
While the book is certainly written as a novel, each chapter is headed with an inspirational quote from Zhu’s character, such as The only benefit of negative thinking is when we need to harness and focus on our useless beliefs to become a better person. Indeed, at the story's heart is the peculiar relationship formed when Zhu approaches Kirk at a Laundromat and offers him ten free sessions from her, the self-proclaimed soul fixer. From there, Zhu bestows upon Kirk the lessons of her teachings and experiences. As she does this, the reader also becomes privy to the insight and musings of the older woman.
Primarily using computer and Internet terms for metaphors, Zhu acts like a techno-guru trying to make shorthand for deeper wisdom. The juxtaposition is interesting if sometimes at odds with the message. Still, it works, and Zhu is able to get her point across to Kirk, who sometimes resists what she is trying to teach him. The titillating lives of the other character provide a nice peripheral for the more meaningful interactions of Kirk and Zhu, but at times feel as though they could have been more fleshed out. Thus, the book oscillates between sensational and insightful, but is always entertaining.