by John Saunders ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 4, 2019
A historically intriguing investigation that falls flat as a panoramic drama.
A historical novel explores the biblically undocumented years of Jesus’ life.
When Jesus is only 12 years old, his great uncle Joseph of Arimathea—generally referred to as Rama—decides his nephew is ready for a deeper educational experience, one that will chasten his tendency to be “falsely sure of himself.” Rama once studied under the famously wise druids in Britannicum—they have “educated members of the noble and royal families of most of the world”—at Ynys Witrin, a remote place, and he believes Jesus would benefit from the same opportunity. Rama takes him on one of his business trips—he supervises the mining operations all across the Roman Empire—and leaves Jesus under the care of the druids for years. There, he learns Ogham, a hermetic language devised to confound the first Roman conquerors. Saunders tracks the religious relics that are a historical testament to Jesus’ educational experience, including a record of his own thoughts etched in Ogham of extraordinary scriptural experiences: “The lance and the cruets are suggestive, but this skin with Ogham is the equivalent of other Apocrypha; it is a fifth Gospel, the Gospel according to Jesus. As short and direct as it is, it is more powerful and valuable than all the others.” The author also conjures two chronologically disparate subplots. In the 16th century, Abbot Richard Whiting refuses to relinquish the relics to King Henry VIII, who plans to use them to legitimize the establishment of his own church outside of papal authority. Before they can be taken by force, Whiting spirits them to the king of Spain, Carlos I. And in a contemporary narrative thread, Bo Chancellor, a New Orleans lawyer, is unwittingly drawn into the search for the relics and their explosive theological significance.
Saunders’ historical research is as impressively erudite as it is inventive—the highlight of the book is the attempt, more creative than rigorously scholarly, to imagine the lost years of Jesus’ life. In the process, the author also deftly fills in the blanks of Joseph of Arimathea’s existence too, “a virtual unknown in the Bible until the last chapters of the four Gospels.” Still, for all of its intellectual strengths, the ambitious novel struggles as a literary drama—simply too much is crammed into it, and it often reads like a congested history textbook more than a vibrant fictional tale. It doesn’t help that Saunders’ prose inclines to the melodramatic and can be unwieldy. At one point, Whiting’s interrogator clumsily declaims: “Then you shall all three be damned to hades for what you have done and continue to do. For we shall continue our search and, when we find all we need, you shall regret that you did not respond to the most generous offer of leniency from His Majesty. You shall feel the wrath.”
A historically intriguing investigation that falls flat as a panoramic drama.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64559-495-6
Page Count: 500
Publisher: Covenant Books
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
More by John Saunders
BOOK REVIEW
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
39
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
Share your opinion of this book
More by Kristin Hannah
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Edward Carey ; illustrated by Edward Carey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 26, 2021
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.
A retelling of Pinocchio from Geppetto's point of view.
The novel purports to be the memoirs of Geppetto, a carpenter from the town of Collodi, written in the belly of a vast fish that has swallowed him. Fortunately for Geppetto, the fish has also engulfed a ship, and its supplies—fresh water, candles, hardtack, captain’s logbook, ink—are what keep the Swallowed Man going. (Collodi is, of course, the name of the author of the original Pinocchio.) A misfit whose loneliness is equaled only by his drive to make art, Geppetto scours his surroundings for supplies, crafting sculptures out of pieces of the ship’s wood, softened hardtack, mussel shells, and his own hair, half hoping and half fearing to create a companion once again that will come to life. He befriends a crab that lives all too briefly in his beard, then mourns when “she” dies. Alone in the dark, he broods over his past, reflecting on his strained relationship with his father and his harsh treatment of his own “son”—Pinocchio, the wooden puppet that somehow came to life. In true Carey fashion, the author illustrates the novel with his own images of his protagonist’s art: sketches of Pinocchio, of woodworking tools, of the women Geppetto loved; photos of driftwood, of tintypes, of a sculpted self-portrait with seaweed hair. For all its humor, the novel is dark and claustrophobic, and its true subject is the responsibilities of creators. Remembering the first time he heard of the sea monster that was to swallow him, Geppetto wonders if the monster is somehow connected to Pinocchio: “The unnatural child had so thrown the world off-balance that it must be righted at any cost, and perhaps the only thing with the power to right it was a gigantic sea monster, born—I began to suppose this—just after I cracked the world by making a wooden person.” Later, contemplating his self-portrait bust, Geppetto asks, “Monster of the deep. Am I, then, the monster? Do I nightmare myself?”
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18887-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Share your opinion of this book
More by Edward Carey
BOOK REVIEW
by Edward Carey
BOOK REVIEW
by Edward Carey
BOOK REVIEW
by Edward Carey ; illustrated by Edward Carey
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.