BOOK REVIEW

MESSIAH: A Novel by Andrei Codrescu (Simon & Schuster , February 1999)
A brilliantly conceived tale of messianic longing, set as Armageddon rages across the globe at the turn of the millennium.


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The angels above are reproductions by Traian Alexandra Filip, a young Romanian painter who, despondent over the tragedy of his country and uneasy in exile, committed suicide a few years after emigrating to the United States. His work, including his dark, illuminated final visions, is represented by Turner Carroll Gallery.725 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA 87501505.986.9800


ADVANCE PRAISE FOR MESSIAH: A NOVEL

From Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 1998:
Counting down to 2000a.d. may be a bit less tense, thanks to this enjoyably goofy melodrama from NPR commentator, essayist, and novelist (The Blood Countess,1995). In alternating chapters, Codrescu recounts the adventures of two unlikely heroines who, together, may save the planet from annihilation. There's Felicity LeJeune, who's on a personal crusade against the evangelist who talked her senile grandmother out of pocketing her lottery winnings. Felicity's attempts to shake down the oily Reverend Mullen are aided in surreptitious ways by her old friend and surrogate father, Major Notz (a figure straight out of Dr. Strangelove). Meanwhile, at a Jerusalem hospice, teenaged Andrea Isbik, another beauty but of indistinct ethnic origin, seduces her protector nuns as well as a polygot group of religious leaders uneasily awaiting the millennium and heads for the Big Easy just as the 1900s breathe their last. The several plots in which each gets enmeshed defy summary, but they embrace such charming oddities as the search for the fabled "Language Crystal" (whereby the globe's scattered millions might communicate), the Internet as a venue for the transmigration of souls, "leather jacketed, pierced people... [called] neotribals" who are seeking a messiah, and the Israeli version of TV's Wheel of Fortune. prominent among this manic story's many characters are a meddlesome angel named Zack, a macho cop obsessed with Felicity, and the "incarnated" spirits of Nikolai Tesla and Roman poet Ovid. Great Minds, nefarious villains, and the crucial figures of Felicity and Andrea ("Together, they were a new being") eventually meet up in the new Jerusalem: New Orleans, during Mardi Graas. And, well, why not? Overstuffed and gratingly whimsical but often very funny (reminiscent of Southern and Hoffenberg's Candy, Gore Vidal's wilder fantasies, and perhaps Edward Whittemoore's Jerusalem Quartet). On the other hand, if you'll believe that Vanna White may be "an emanation . . . of the Divine One," this is the novel for you.-- ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All Rights Reserved.