Dear Patrick,

For five years I have been witness to your struggles to grow up without a father. As a family friend, I can't make that up to you. What I can do is stand by you, and teach you how to be the kind of man you wish your father had been …

So begins the correspondence of two unlikely friends, Patrick Buckley, a sixteen-year-old New York City high schooler, and Jeffrey M. Schwartz, internationally renowned neuroscientist and the critically acclaimed author of Brain Lock and The Mind and the Brain. Inspired by Patrick's straight forward questions, Schwartz examines the moral teachings of our greatest spiritual leaders — Jesus, Buddha, and Moses — and filters them through the lens of his cutting-edge psychiatric research, as well as his own experiences of childhood loneliness and loss. With fierce certainty and love, Schwartz provides Patrick with a blueprint for breaking free from the culture of corrosive cynicism that threatens to destroy him, and for constructing a decent, meaningful, and fulfilling life. The result is a fascinating and revolutionary new code for living born of a man and a boy who sought honor and self-command in a culture of self-indulgence.

Annie Gottlieb