Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #436287 in Books
• Published on: 1995-04-24
• 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

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.

Disappointing tripe
My expectations were a bit too high when I bought this book. It looked like an intelligent, tongue-in-cheek, farcical tale, a what-if scenario played out with a sense of humor dosed heavily with irreverence. The what-if part is funny, yes, but Morrow really doesn't display a mastery at his craft to pull any of the rest off. It reads like a conversation you'd have with friends while getting high in the basement.

Stereotypes of people push along a mildly comical plot-line that's dressed up as whacky, irreverent philosophical fodder. The characters are developed only as far as the plot necessitates. And the extent to which they're defined is the farce, each drawn in the big lines of a caricature. One woman is a feminazi who over-intellectualizes everything and writes bad plays about her hatred for the male-dominant religion. Morrow takes the idea of a feminist and turns the dial to eleven. The Catholic priest is so desperate for God that, when he believes his God is lost and people are falling to shame, the priest falls to his knees, screaming for Immanuel Kant to save them. For a time, while reading, I honestly suspected that Morrow was kidding with these badly written people. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. He meant for these characters to be like this -- worker bees harboring killer instincts, average people ready to soil themselves, destroy or steal everything around them, throw orgy parties, all because God existed and now he doesn't. I wonder at all the atheists out there who aren't robbing banks and having sex in the streets because they believe there is no God. Intentionally campy? I don't think so, because Morrow clearly expects us to be sympathetic to some of the characters. There really was just nothing funny or intelligent about this book.

If you're looking for a book with literary value, this is not it. If you want something genuinely funny and irreverent, I'd suggest _The Stupidest Angel_ by Christopher Moore. And if I haven't convinced you, then at least do yourself a favor and buy a used copy.

Wonderful
Every so often, a book comes along and just blows you away--the book becomes part of your life, something you often think about and go back to. You recommend the book to everyone who will listen, and you envy the people who are themselves reading it for the first time. Finding such a book keeps you looking for the next one that will give you the same thrill. For me, those books include Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury, Ghost Story by Peter Straub, Salem's' Lot by Stephen King, Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, Dune by James Herbert, The Godfather by Mario Puzo, Random Walk by Lawrence Block, and The World According to Garp by John Irving.

The reason I mention this is that I had just such an experience with James Morrow's masterpiece, Towing Jehovah. I was in awe the first time I read it, and have gone back to it a couple of times since.

The plot of this stellar novel can be summed up in one sentence: God dies, falls to Earth, and must be towed to a tomb in the Artic. What is the book about? I'd have to say responsibility, duty, redemption, closed mindedness, and, most importantly, love. I probably missed a lot of what was in there, but you get the picture.

Towing Jehovah tells the story of Anthony Van Horne, former Captain of an oil tanker named the Carpco Valparaiso. Van Horne lives in disgrace due to a costly error in judgment which led to an "Exxon Valdez" type disaster. Van Horne has spent the years since the disaster living a marginal existence. His days are spent wallowing in self-pity; at night he is subject to the torture of horrid, continuous nightmares.

All that changes when Van Horne is accosted by the dying angel Raphael Azarias, who tells him he must command the refurbished Carpco Valparaiso on its most important mission: towing the two mile long corpse of the Supreme Being to a tomb that his angels have constructed.

After overcoming his initial skepticism, Van Horne accepts the task. The rest of the novel describes the ship's onerous trek to the Arctic tomb. Besides relating the details of Van Horne's physical and spiritual journey, Morrow also finds the time to skewer rabid feminists, ignorant chauvinists, oil companies, the Catholic Church, World War II buffs, junk food, humanism, rationalism, and Cecil B. DeMille. Rest assured, there is something in here to offend everyone.

This is a wonderful novel, featuring Morrow at his cynical best. Read it for its uplifting message, biting satire and fearless pursuit of ideas, but most of all, read it because it's just so damn good.