A review by psalmcat
The Autobiography of God by Julius Lester
4.0
The title just grabbed me, and it's kind of a mystery as well, plus the author is pretty well-known in children's literature. He's not who you would picture to write the story of a 38-year-old former rabbi counseling college kids at a private New England school. From what I can tell, he got the Jewish sensibility down pretty well.
Rebecca is very strong in her sense of Jewish tradition, almost to the point of being trapped by it. Her faith? Well, that's a harder question to answer. Her parents are survivors of Auschwitz, and so was nearly everyone in her neighborhood growing up. The shadow of the camps covers her like a shawl.
So when she receives a Torah rescued from the Nazis after WWII which belonged to a village in Poland that was exterminated, she is uniquely prepared to handle the early morning Kaddish that is chanted in her dining room nightly. She's even amenable to the voice of a woman from Czechowa telling her the story behind the scroll. Amenable, that is, until a mysterious box appears next to the scroll which her new 'friend' tells her is God's autobiography.
It's not what she expects. It's not what anyone has expected: God has tried giving it to people as far apart as Martin Luther and Mohammed. No one wants to read it; none of the others have even finished it. Most burned or drowned it.
Rebecca reads it, and then God appears in her loft.
Meanwhile, one of the students she has counseled is murdered...
There's a lot in here. Most of it cohered all right, but there were some bumps. I'd recommend it, though, to anyone who ponders how Good and Evil interact.
Rebecca is very strong in her sense of Jewish tradition, almost to the point of being trapped by it. Her faith? Well, that's a harder question to answer. Her parents are survivors of Auschwitz, and so was nearly everyone in her neighborhood growing up. The shadow of the camps covers her like a shawl.
So when she receives a Torah rescued from the Nazis after WWII which belonged to a village in Poland that was exterminated, she is uniquely prepared to handle the early morning Kaddish that is chanted in her dining room nightly. She's even amenable to the voice of a woman from Czechowa telling her the story behind the scroll. Amenable, that is, until a mysterious box appears next to the scroll which her new 'friend' tells her is God's autobiography.
It's not what she expects. It's not what anyone has expected: God has tried giving it to people as far apart as Martin Luther and Mohammed. No one wants to read it; none of the others have even finished it. Most burned or drowned it.
Rebecca reads it, and then God appears in her loft.
Meanwhile, one of the students she has counseled is murdered...
There's a lot in here. Most of it cohered all right, but there were some bumps. I'd recommend it, though, to anyone who ponders how Good and Evil interact.