A gentler view of Jesus that receptive readers will find intriguing.
A novel about an imagined life of Jesus Christ from debut author Rainbow.
After Judas Iscariot has a dream involving an “image of a gaunt, tunic-clad man with a light beard,” it’s not long before he comes across Jesus of Nazareth. Though there are many in Jerusalem proclaiming miracles, Judas inherently knows only one of them can be the man he’s looking for. Likewise, emerging from the desert, Jesus has had his own dream of meeting a man of Judas’ description. Inviting Jesus to his home so that he may bathe, it’s soon obvious to Judas that he’s not dealing with any simple desert wanderer. After healing a wound inflicted upon Judas by an angry Roman, Jesus explains, “my Father bade me to go forth in this body as His Son, to offer forgiveness for mankind’s sins.” And go forth he does. Gaining followers amongst Judas’ initially skeptical friends Peter and Matthew, Jesus makes statements such as, “I have come not only to heal, but also to teach God’s truth and spread God’s love so that people can learn how to keep from wounding themselves and instead, prosper and co-create with God’s will.” Gaining enemies along with friends, Jesus’ mission continues with aspects found in the Bible as well as many that are not. This novel’s version of Jesus is not only more humanized than most (he’s very capable of feeling lust), it’s also less cryptic (as in his explanation of a person’s soullike “essence”: “One’s Essence can never be destroyed and exists before one’s birth and after the death of one’s physical body”). Notable for its treatment of Judas as far from the greedy betrayer so often portrayed, the story offers a novel, more personal view of the disciples and their master. Although the traditional bad guys, such as Pontius Pilate and Herod, are painted with broad strokes, the book on a whole creates a sympathetic Jesus with whom one might want to converse, even if some of the savior’s statements veer toward the stilted, as in his explanation of why he likes Mary Magdalene: “it’s her sense of childlike comfort that gives me a feeling of being more settled within as chaos percolates all around me.”
A gentler view of Jesus that receptive readers will find intriguing.Pub Date: June 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5115-7296-5
Page Count: 504
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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