Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #316402 in Books
• Published on: 1995-04-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From Publishers Weekly
God is dead, and Anthony Van Horne doesn't feel very well himself. Van Horne--whose captaincy of a mammoth oil tanker during an Exxon Valdez -type spill has left him unemployed, estranged from his family and suffering nightmares--is hired by the Vatican to pilot his former vessel as it tows the Supreme Being (found dead of unknown causes) to a tomb in the Arctic that His angels have built for Him. Van Horne's task would be difficult enough without the well-intentioned efforts of devout atheist Cassie Fowler and her compatriots from the Central Park West Enlightenment League, whose reactions to God's corporeality belie their organization's quaint name. Morrow (winner of a World Fantasy Award for his novel Only Begotten Daughter ) describes a captivating voyage. As complication builds upon complication--including a shipwreck, an island that appears to be the abode of pagan gods, a mutiny, acrimonious dealings with Van Horne's father and contretemps from both the reappraising Vatican and the WW II Reenactment Society--Van Horne's journal reads like that of a modern-day Odysseus. There's an unnecessary death that deprives the narrative of the perspective of one of its potentially most interesting characters, but this clever novel still stands as a wry, boisterous celebration.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Anthony Van Horne, the disgraced captain of an oil tanker that spilled its cargo, is approached by the angel Raphael at the Cloisters in New York to command his former ship on an important mission. It seems God has died, and his two-mile-long corpse has fallen into the ocean at 0 latitude, 0 longitude. The Vatican would like the captain to tow God to a remote Arctic cave for a quiet burial. Naturally, things don't work out this simply, and the complications form the events of this splendid comic epic. As more and more folks with varying perspectives become aware of the covert mission, more hell, if you will, breaks loose. The author, an sf crossover, puts the weighty subject and its possible ramifications to clever use on many levels. He packs the story with sailing matters, cultural criticism, theology, physics, and more but still manages to keep the encounter bubbly and inviting. Recommended for general collections.
- Brian Geary, West Seneca, N.Y.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
A past winner of the World Fantasy Award, Morrow could easily claim another prize, for the year's most outlandish fictional premise, if there were prizes for such things. When God Himself drops dead, leaving His two-mile-long corpse floating face up in the Atlantic, former sea captain Anthony Van Horne is recruited by a grieving archangel to haul the Corpus Dei to an icy tomb at the North Pole. Eager to redeem himself for indirectly causing the century's worst oil spill, Van Horne resumes command of his newly repaired supertanker, the Carpco Valparaiso, and speeds north with God in tow. Already faced with protecting the corpse against marauding predators from the air and the sea, Van Horne confronts a series of setbacks as absurd as the notion of his divine cargo--setbacks such as a plot by a rescued feminist castaway to bomb and sink the patriarchal corpse for the good of womankind. Writing a brand of masterfully understated comic prose all his own, Morrow is a genius, and this book is one of the most deliciously irreverent satirical sprees in years. Carl Hays

Customer Reviews

Adventurous satire
When the mile-long corpse of God plummets into the ocean and the angels begin to die of grief, the archangel Raphael's final act is to engage a disgraced freighter captain to tow the body to an Arctic tomb, where it will be preserved for eternity. His mission is complicated by the Vatican, militant atheists, and the World War II Reenactment Society.

James Morrow has written an extraordinary novel that succeeds on several levels. First, it is a rousing adventure, full of danger, setbacks, and action. Second, it is an amusing satire that exposes the foibles of humanity from every point on the spectrum. Neither devout believers nor committed atheists are spared. Finally, and most satisfyingly, it is a serious meditation on the necessity of the concept of God for humanity and what it would mean if we ever lost it. This novel is the first of Morrow's Godhead Trilogy. I shall certainly read more of them.

bound to be a classic
This somewhat sacriligious but definitely thought provoking book takes the premise that God has died and fallen into the sea. A two mile long body that Anthony Van Horne, a disgraced sailor, is commissioned to bury in the artic circle. You can imagine the hilarity and calamity that ensues. It's a dark comedy that makes you laugh the same way Fight Club does. It's an award winning book that I hope new readers will discover for centuries.

Religious people WOULD like this book too...
Towing Jehovah (as well as it's two sequels) is a marvelous work. Morrow is fair to all sides, both religious and non-religious. He doesn't hate religion or the idea of God as many think he does. On the contrary, he understands well the role that faith has as a part of the human condition, in both its positive and negative aspects. To the reviewer who warns Christian fundamentalists away from this book, I think Christian fundamentalists (or anyone who takes his religion seriously) would find a lot to like about this book very much. Morrow pokes just as much fun at the rabid anti-religious zealots as he does at religious people, if not more! More than that, he pokes fun at ideologies, all the "isms" in our world that want to blame God for things done out of human will. But he does even this in a respectful way, trying to show where such points of view comes from. At the same time, he shows the strength that faith in God can provide to help us through difficult times in our lives. Contrary to what some of the other reviewers on here, who are obviously nitpicking to look for things to hate about it, this is literally one of the finest, most thought-provoking, most well told novels I've ever read. Morrow is a genius with words, a genius as a storyteller, and I always look forward to another of his books to be published. The only complaint I have about Morrow is that he forces me to wait years before I can finally enjoy a new book -- but that of course that is because he takes the time to do a novel well. A rare commodity these days.