A moving portrait of a messiah within a so-so satire, but with just enough edge to get media and readers’ attention.
Hendra—a founding editor of National Lampoon; a player in This Is Spinal Tap—follows his bestselling memoir about his spiritual mentor (Father Joe, 2004) with a debut novel detailing the near-future Second Coming.
The United States is a theocracy. The Christian Right has triumphed. Mere blasphemy is a crime in this militarized and vengeful nation. The second messiah will not be crucified but lethally injected in a Christian-run prison in Texas. All of this we learn from the prologue. Narrator Johnny Greco claims to be the Judas figure here, though that’s a misnomer. He’s an aging journalist who has seen better days, which, for one thing, brought him a Pulitzer; now he works for a sleazy Internet outfit, pursuing rumors of a miracle worker in the northeast. What sets this charlatan apart from others is his lack of interest in publicity. Johnny first catches sight of him in a Connecticut court, where he’s charged with practicing medicine without a license after curing a woman’s leukemia. He gets six months. The messiah is known as Jay. He was raised in the Bronx by his Guatemalan immigrant mother; his Irish father was seldom around. Jay is not exactly the picture of ethereal beauty, but he posseses undeniable charisma, as Johnny discovers once they’ve met one-on-one. Jay has returned to “refresh the message,” he says; contemporary Christianity he finds “unrecognizable.” Johnny’s sessions with Jay are the novel’s high points—Jay’s combination of strength and sweetness is remarkably poignant. Hendra’s narrative is less compelling when he satirizes the “fundos” (fundamentalists) and their leader, the Reverend James Sabbath, who’s in cahoots with the presidential administration, which is planning an attack on Israel and Europe. Could this be Armageddon? The author relies too heavily on spectacle (a faith-based Oscars ceremony; a rally at Madison Square Garden) and miracles, though Jay would have his followers “believe without miracles.” Once Jay publicly preaches pacifism, the jig is up. His “blasphemy” is tantamount to treason, punishable by death.
A moving portrait of a messiah within a so-so satire, but with just enough edge to get media and readers’ attention.Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 0-8050-7964-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.
Christian-fiction writer Martin (The Dead Don’t Dance, not reviewed) chronicles the personal tragedy of a Georgia heart surgeon.
Five years ago in Atlanta, Reese could not save his beloved wife Emma from heart failure, even though the Harvard-trained surgeon became a physician so that he could find a way to fix his childhood sweetheart’s congenitally faulty ticker. He renounced practicing medicine after her death and now lives in quiet anonymity as a boat mechanic on Lake Burton. Across the lake is Emma’s brother Charlie, who was rendered blind on the same desperate night that Reese fought to revive his wife on their kitchen floor. When Reese helps save the life of a seven-year-old local girl named Annie, who turns out to have irreparable heart damage, he is compassionately drawn into her case. He also grows close to Annie’s attractive Aunt Cindy and gradually comes to recognize that the family needs his expertise as a transplant surgeon. Martin displays some impressive knowledge about medical practice and the workings of the heart, but his Christian message is not exactly subtle. “If anything in this universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart,” Reese notes of his medical studies. Emma’s letters (kept in a bank vault) quote Bible verse; Charlie elucidates stories of Jesus’ miracles for young Annie; even the napkins at the local bar, The Well, carry passages from the Gospel of John for the benefit of the biker clientele. Moreover, Martin relentlessly hammers home his sentimentality with nature-specific metaphors involving mating cardinals and crying crickets. (Annie sells crickets as well as lemonade to raise money for her heart surgery.) Reese’s habitual muttering of worldly slogans from Milton and Shakespeare (“I am ashes where once I was fire”) doesn’t much cut the cloying piety, and an over-the-top surgical save leaves the reader feeling positively bruised.
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 1-5955-4054-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: WestBow/Thomas Nelson
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
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