Reactions
(Back cover My Heaven on Earth)
Professor in one of the Amsterdam universities, July 2009:
You wrote a magnicicant book, you really did! You did it very well. Is this book avalable in any bookshop?’
Me: ‘Yes, it is. You only need the ISBN of the book, 978-94-6008-057-9, to order it.
Professor: All right! I wish that much more people read your book. It gives the reader philosophy of life. I myself have learnt a lot of you. I admire you for that!
Investigative journalist EO national television:
‘This book is beautiful, honest, informative and universal’
Journalist newspaper ‘Dagblad van het Noorden”:
‘A moving, beautiful and honest book.’
Reader:
Once Gerard Reve (Dutch writer) wrote in his book ‘Oud en eenzaam’ (Old and Lonely) about his suffocating communistic youth. Later on I read that somebody had experienced, in this story had been described his own wrestling with his rigid-Christian environment. He mentioned that to be an example of a successful book, whereas Reve had succeeded in making universally empathised his personal story. According to me, you too have succeeded to do so.
One of Hester’s leaders:
A moving and honest book. I wonder since then if I pay enough attention to the role of the woman in my own family.
Acquaintance:
I think your book is sweeping and moving. Thank you!
Journalist Boekgrrls, Web site :
My Heaven on Earth is more than the report of a woman who is finding her own place inside the Roman Catholic church and who finally quits the Church. It is also a document that shows a personal view of the history of the daily Roman Catholic life in the Netherlands. It is also a splendid story of a profound love between two people, that face all kinds of obstacles.
Publisher of schoolbooks:
As soon as I started the reading, I stole the hours to continue the reading.
I enjoyed the stories about Hester (35, Down Syndrome)
Nephew:
The book is very good reading. More often than not the first-person books are rotten books to read, but here it didn’t bother me. You write as you are: you follow your nose, straight to the point.
Nephew who corrected my translation into English:
Yes. Amen!!! You are right! I agree with you!!!
I enjoy your book very much and if I can say so look forward to the next chapters.
Colleague of Dirk’s:
I think the book is exciting. It carries you along as if you yourself are in the middle of it.
Colleague of Dirk’s:
In the meantime I have discussed the book with a lot of people and I recommended it to them. I want to thank you for your story.
Acquaintance:
She wrote me a four page long letter and finishes with: with thankful and warm greetings…
Backside postcard:
‘To Miek, author from the darkness, from M., author from the light.
You forgot that one, the devil. He came with Rosemary Radford Ruether’s book,
and now it is still worse: you write a suchlike book.
Headmaster:
My wife and I read your book with more than normal interest. So my wife has been occupied with emancipation problems on t.v. Among us that caused discussions which were very much similar to the discussions you both had and which Miek describes so open-heartedly in her book
Manager of an institution:
Your book was very surprising and very honest.
Whereas my education in a Calvinistic clergyman’s family wasn’t free from anti-papal sentiments, I have to say honestly that a kind of prepossession is still playing tricks on me.
I mean it as a compliment, that your book in its clearness also shows the nuances. And that has enriched my picture.
Best friend:
At last I have finished your book. To me it was very heavy, as well as it must have been very heavy for you all those years. And I’ll tell you what hurts me a lot: I have been your best friend from the primary school and yet I never knew of it.
Nieces:
It made me silent. How all this have caused an unprecedented impact on your life. How this can hurt appallingly.
I read you book in one go and it was a pity that I had finished it.
The suppression of women has been propagated by the Church. It makes me sick.
A timely, recognisable honest book. Something to think about.
Fellow traveller:
I recognise a lot in your book. But as for feminism I can’t agree with you. I do not accept everything, really, but what you write is going too far for me.