If Robert James Waller were to don homespun and ride the circuit, this might be the result. The faithful and literarily...
In which a Gordon Gekko-ish sinner is hauled from the slough of despondency by a very helpful Buddy Christ.
Tony Spencer isn’t a bad, bad, bad man, but he’s not a good one, either. He loves women, whiskey and money, not necessarily in that order, and though once in reasonably good standing with the man upstairs, he has drifted into the limbo of not particularly caring one way or the other; in his view, “[l]ife was a violent evolutionary gasp of meaninglessness, the temporary survival of the smartest or most cunning.” Big mistake, for when Tony finds himself in the back of a big screaming ambulance, fate pitches him out on the other side of the universe to face down—well, Dad, or Papa God, as evangelist Young cloyingly calls him. Grandmother is more sympathetic, if a touch elliptical and, well, a bit hippie-ish (“Breathe in, breathe out, be still.”), but Sonny—that is, Christ—is a born explainer, patient and in the main, sympathetic. “Listen carefully, Tony,” He says. “There is only...hear me carefully: there is only one God.” Ah, yes: Straight is the gate and narrow the path—anyone who paid attention in Sunday school knows the drift, but Young’s J.C. rolls right up to the edges of the New Age, without much evident fondness for smiting and such. Young has a very odd sensibility when it comes to spinning descriptions, serving up disturbing metaphors, such as “Winter simply bowed out like a beaten woman” (Why not a beaten man? Because a beaten woman, presumably, is more Pauline.), and odd ethnic observations (“Obviously Anglo-Saxon, a hint of something darker and finer softened his features…”). Even so, this yarn is competently (but no more than competently) spun, if ever so obvious.
If Robert James Waller were to don homespun and ride the circuit, this might be the result. The faithful and literarily forgiving might approve.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4555-1604-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: FaithWords
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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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