Merry Christmas!

Opinion:   

Can We Imagine a World Without Christmas?

How would the world be different--beyond spirituality and religion;

in a cultural sense--if Jesus Christ had never been born?

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Opinion/Editorial: "Other Views/ Guest Columnist" (Section A-13)

BY KATHLEEN GERARD

To read the article in its entirety, click on the highlighted title above

The Jesus Cow

Humorist Michael Perry (Coop) makes a foray into fiction with The Jesus Cow, a novel about a small Midwest community that is transformed in profound and hilarious ways by a bull calf born in a barn on Christmas Eve.

Perry sets the story in Swivel, Wis.--population exaggerated at 562--only visible from the interstate by a long-stemmed, halogen-lit Kwik Pump gasoline sign whose "logo glows against the sky." He focuses on resident Harley Jackson, who lives in the house where he grew up, on 15 acres of deteriorating farmland. When his prized cow, Tina Turner, delivers a bull calf bearing the image of Jesus Christ on its black-and-white patchwork hide, Harley, a born-again believer, doesn't drop to his knees. Instead, he says, "Well, that's trouble."

Whether the calf was marked by God or not, Harley doesn't want anything to disturb his manageable, unassuming life. But when the Jesus calf escapes from the barn, the animal's image goes viral. Harley's upper Midwest farm soon becomes an international spiritual destination--a circus that sends the town residents into a tizzy. 

As in Truck: A Love Story and Visiting Tom, Perry once again delivers his own brand of outlandishness through rich, endearing characterizations of quirky small-town folks, and how their zany foibles and flaws mask underlying disappointments, secrets and longings. By deploying humor in depicting the often painful truths and absurdities of life, Perry successfully makes much larger statements about society and the human condition.

The Jesus Cow: A Novel by Michael Perry

Harper, $25.99 Hardcover, 9780062289919, 304 pp

Publication Date: May 19, 2015

To order via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (5/26/15), click HERE

This review was also featured (in a longer form) on Shelf Awareness: Book Trade (5/11/15). To read the longer review click HERE

Manuscript Found in Accra

In July 1099, the walled city of Jerusalem is said to have experienced religious peace and tolerance - Jews, Muslims and Christians worshipped without incident. But beyond the gates of the city, enemy crusaders sharpened their swords, readying to invade the populace and disturb the peace. The people were given a choice to either abandon the city or fight to the death. Most chose to stay.

In Manuscript Found in Accra, Paulo Coelho has written a transcription of a fictional Apocryphal Gospel (not included in any holy religious book), documenting what one prophet, a Greek named Copt, revealed to multitudes on the night before the attack that transformed peace into a war that Copt predicted "will last into an unimaginably distant future."

One wonders why the people gathered to listen to Copt? After all, the manuscript reveals that Copt worked as a shoemaker and did not belong to any one religious sect. What encouraged the inhabitants to defer from making provisions and feeding their anxiety and preoccupation in the face of death and forced exodus to stop and listen? Were the masses who hunkered down simply looking for a way to allay their fears and deepen their faith?

By choosing to leave missing pieces and unanswered questions, Coelho lends greater authenticity to the form and tenor of this novel-turned-gospel-narrative. In Coelho's literary hands, one questions the role of coincidence. Is Copt's name a coincidence or a relation to Coptic Christians? And what about the setting--the square where Pontius Pilate and the crowds condemned Jesus Christ to death? Here, Copt makes his philosophical declarations on a myriad of issues including knowledge, death, work, miracles, loyalty and the future and encourages listeners to write down his words in order to "preserve the soul of Jerusalem" as he believes that peace will one day reign in the region again.

Fitting, too, that Coelho chose not to support this novel with a traditional literary plot, outside of the introduction that briefly details the long, circuitous route the manuscript takes until discovered. Instead, Coelho's parable-like structure and historical presentation heighten the relevance of wisdom shared a thousand years ago to people in peril. Read in the context of modern society--with its wars, terror, divisiveness and decadence--Manuscript Found in Accra points up how the world has continued to be invaded by "demons of intolerance and lack of understanding" for centuries and yet, amid adversity, there still remains the hope that tenets of love and faith can endure, if consciously cultivated.

Manuscript Found in Accra by Paulo Coelho (Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa)

Alfred A. Knopf,  $22.00, Hardcover, 9780385349833, 208 pp

Publication Date: April 3, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This book was provided for review by Alfred A. Knopf Publishers and TLC Book Tours.

The Book of Neil

It's 2012 and Jesus Christ returns to earth, to a "fair little city," where he is completely ignored, dismissed and scoffed at as "another mentally ill street preacher." But one day on the Crystal Creek golf course, when Jesus, wearing "a grayish robe tied by a thick rope around the waist...his hair...long and swept across his shoulders with each practice swing" strikes up a conversation with Neil, a middle-aged man in familial and financial crises, things take a dramatic turn. Jesus is desperate to make his presence known. He enlists Neil's help, as He decides to seek media attention in a secular world driven and preoccupied by technology, materialism and self-indulgence. The two hatch a plan to rob a bank in order to benefit their mutually desired goals.

The hilariously flawed execution of their plan snowballs in The Book of Neil, a smart, amusing story about faith and the nature of belief in the modern world. Author Frank Turner Hollon (Blood and Circumstance, Austin and Emily) narrates Jesus' return to earth via the points-of-view of those whose lives He touches, an array of believers and doubters: Neil, suffering pre and post-robbery panic; the skeptical police chief in town; a bank teller who feels a sudden "peace come over her" during the robbery; a New York Times reporter eager to launch the story of the "Jesus-Bandit"; and even the President of the United States.

Unexpected twists and turns shape The Book of Neil. At the end, on the rapid approach to a chilling climax, the engrossing, satirical aspects of this novel suddenly emerge in a whole new light, and Hollon's literary craftsmanship leaps from mere entertainment into a much deeper, thought-provoking epiphany.

The Book of Neil  by Frank Turner Hollon

MacAdam/Cage, $20.00, Hardcover, 978159692380, 230 pp

Publication Date: November 16, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (12/11/12), click HERE.

different character’ point of view. Not only Neil, but Edwin (the police