FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
CITY OF GOD begins in mystery: in the autumn of 1999 the large brass cross behind the altar of St. Timothy's Episcopal church in lower Manhattan disappears....and even more mysteriously reappears on the roof of the Synagogue for Evolutionary Judaism on the upper westside. The church's maverick rector, and the young rabbinical couple who lead the synagogue, set about attempting to learn who the vandals are who have committed this strange double act of desecration and to what purpose, but their joint clerical investigation only deepens the mystery. A writer alerted to the story by a newspaper article befriends the priest and the rabbis, and finds that their own struggles with their respective traditions are relevant to the case. In fact, as the narrative advances, and the story broadens, more and more people are implicated in what may be the elusive prophecy of a new American culture. Daringly poised at the junction of the sacred and profane the book opens into a multi-voiced narrative that finally incorporates the monumental historical events and predominating ideas of our age. Filled with the sights and sounds of New York, and with a cast of vividly drawn characters that includes scientists, war veterans, prelates, holocaust survirors, cabinet members, theologians, New York Times reporters, film actors, and crooners, this dazzlingly inventive, mordantly funny masterwork emerges as the American novel readers have been thirsting for, a defining document of our times, a narrative of the 20th Century written for the 21st.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In his workbook, a New York City novelist records the contents of his teeming brain--sketches for stories, accounts of his love affairs, riffs on the meanings of popular songs, ideas for movies, obsessions with cosmic processes. He is a virtual repository of the predominant ideas and historical disasters of the age. But now he has found a story he thinks may be-come his next novel: The large brass cross that hung behind the altar of St. Timothy's, a run-down Episco-pal church in lower Manhattan, has disappeared...and even more mysteriously reappeared on the roof of the Synagogue for Evolutionary Judaism, on the Upper West Side. The church's maverick rector and the young woman rabbi who leads the synagogue are trying to learn who committed this strange double act of desecration and why. Befriending them, the novelist finds that their struggles with their respective traditions are relevant to the case. Into his workbook go his taped interviews, insights, preliminary drafts...and as he joins the clerics in pursuit of the mystery, it broadens to implicate a large cast of vividly drawn characters--including scientists, war veterans, prelates, Holocaust survivors, cabinet members, theologians, New York Times reporters, filmmakers, and crooners--in what proves to be a quest for an authentic spirituality at the end of this tortured century.

SYNOPSIS

In his workbook, a New York City novelist records the contents of his teeming brain--sketches for stories, accounts of his love affairs, riffs on the meanings of popular songs, ideas for movies, obsessions with cosmic processes. He is a virtual repository of the predominant ideas and historical disasters of the age.

FROM THE CRITICS

Madison Smartt Bell - Washington Post

In its deliberate incompleteness, City of God is the sort of philosophical novel that our times demand.

Wall Street Journal

A deeply personal book...an ambitious postmodern riff with a grander perspective on the universe...a stunning vision....

Time Magazine

Dazzling ... enthralling and suspenseful.

Mirabella

A great, bubbling, mewling, eloquent, despairing, joyous, agonized, earnest, desperate, and God-hungry work...brilliant.

Los Angeles Times

Blooms with a humor and humanity ... monumental.Read all 9 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING