Book Review: The Messiah of Morris Avenue

For some time, I have been posting reviews of many books I read online in various places.  I have decided to start posting religious-related book reviews here.  The first is a novel that offers a modern retelling of the gospel.

The Messiah of Morris Avenue: A Novel by Tony Hendra (Henry Holt, 2006), hardcover, 256 pages

A few years ago a popular song asked, "What if God was one of us?" For many Christians, the question causes us to imagine how the Gospel stories would be different if Jesus were to be born in our lifetime, into a world of air travel, microwave cooking, and electronic communication so different from ancient Judea. Tony Hendra accepts this challenge in "The Messiah of Morris Avenue," retelling the story of Jesus if he were to be born in the United States sometime in the near future.

Told from the perspective of a jaded journalist -- in a future where newspapers have been replaced with online sources that pursue tabloid, TMZ-style stories at the local level -- the novel focuses on the investigation of nebulous miracles attributed to a young Hispanic man named Jay. In search of this man described as wearing a hooded sweatshirt, the cynical reporter Johnny Greco encounters the small group closest to the purported wonderworker, a collection of unemployed outcasts, most who had served time in prison — drug addicts, prostitutes, and petty thieves.

Although skeptical, Greco is intrigued by the mysterious teacher, eventually meeting with Jay. While not convinced that he is Jesus reborn, the reporter believes him to be sincere, something quite unusual in the context of cynical and cutthroat reporting that has come to define Jay's industry. As might be expected, the growing notoriety of the Hispanic wonderworker attracts the attention of the religious powers that be, including the dominant televangelist James Sabbath. The resulting conflict parallels the narrative arc of the Gospels, if with slightly more attention and empathy given to the religious elites.

Hendra generally stays close to the contours of the original stories about Jesus, using wonderful ingenuity to create a modern equivalent to the story filled with marvelous details, such as the federal lethal injection facility he imagines. As might be expected of an author who previously edited humor magazines, there are many laughs, including several witty barbs against the Religious Right bogeyman that serve as the novel's high priest. However Hendra, sensitively and rightly, is more interested in a search for true faith wherever it might be found; this marvelous book is one such fruitful search.