A rambling, curious, convoluted entertainment tailor-made for fans of political fiction who want a fantastical, vividly...
A political sendup skewers the presidential campaign process.
Human rights advocate and author Cooper’s (World One, 1990) opus echoes the current state of contemporary unrest in Washington, D.C., and the world at large. In the book’s preamble, dejected Democratic National Committee Chairman Jerry McClellan concedes his position in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, in which “George W.” emerged victorious and swiftly turned the country’s political canvas a Republican shade of red. Dejected, mourning America’s ill-fated future, and “happy to have a safe place to hide,” McClellan takes up temporary residency in a used bookstore, dusting off a copy of a novel titled My Name Is Jesus Christ and I’m Running for President, agreeing that “Jesus Christ would make for the perfect moral values candidate in 2008!!!” Cooper’s ambitious literary undertaking becomes a novel within a novel as readers follow McClellan as he devours the anonymously authored story of Jesus’ campaign for the 2020 presidency. Cooper’s serpentine narrative finds the son of God descending from the heavens into Los Angeles on Christmas Eve in 2019 on the first stop of his “Born Again Comeback Tour,” which soon becomes his 2020 campaign for president of the United States. While definitely not for religiously sensitive audiences, the author’s eccentric and often hilarious satire depicts Jesus as a deity who also embodies an Everyman. He pops vitamin B12 and D pills, attends psychotherapy sessions to process the trauma of his crucifixion, and rubs hand cream into the scars of his stigmata. Meanwhile, alternately narrating in first person, is Jesus’ hypercritical, hard-drinking, cocaine-snorting older stepbrother, who tunes into a remote live-feed to watch the Messiah’s every move from a Mexican safe house. Commenting that the charged atmosphere surrounding the deity’s revival is “a bit like watching daytime soaps,” the stepbrother sees Jesus being interviewed by the media about his intentions throughout his Second Coming and beholds the spectacle of a receiving line of Hollywood celebrities like Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, and Bono. Both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nancy Pelosi make feverish pitches to become Jesus’ disciples. Jesus is soon persuaded by the people to run for presidential office as a Democrat, but his stepbrother steps in as the opposing Republican candidate in a heated race complete with debates, Arab terrorists, and Stephen Colbert. This melodrama more closely resembles a whirlwind kaleidoscopic fever dream than a campaign trail chronology. By incorporating both first-person narratives of Jesus and his malevolent stepbrother, the novel becomes a unique and humorous political caricature parodying the country’s electoral process, its numerous hypocrisies and mudslinging behaviors, and (if thinly veiled) Donald Trump’s cabinet selection process. The rousing tale’s drawbacks, which include its meandering exposition and numerous typographical errors (“River Jordon”; “Long Ranger’s”; “Katherine Hepburn”), will perhaps be forgiven by readers enthralled by Cooper’s creatively inspired grasp on the concept of farcical political lampooning.
A rambling, curious, convoluted entertainment tailor-made for fans of political fiction who want a fantastical, vividly realized escape from the bizarro reality of contemporary government.Pub Date: June 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9619914-3-2
Page Count: 554
Publisher: Americus Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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