Authors Find Old Stories Have Fresh Possibilities
by Marcia Z. Nelson, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 1/31/2007
The newest high-profile writer to join the creative crowd inspired by biblical subjects is bestselling British novelist Jeffrey Archer. The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot (St. Martin's, Mar.) is structured as a gospel and intended to tell Jesus' life from the viewpoint of the disciple who sold out his master. As written by Judas's imagined son Benjamin, the 22,000-word work is a collaboration between Lord Archer and Australian biblical scholar Francis Moloney. Moloney taught at the Catholic University of America and is a past president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America. His job was to make sure that details Archer imagined would be possible. "I wrote things, and he said many, many times, 'That's not acceptable,' " Archer told RBL.
Controversy, however, is both acceptable and expected. "There are six things [in the book] which are going to cause a lot of controversy," said Archer, prepublication mum about them except to allow that Judas does not hang himself in this newest gospel. Speaking to RBL from Spain, the former Tory Member of Parliament, who is used to headlines, said the buzz for this book is greater than anything he's experienced in a writing career that includes 27 titles since 1976. "We had such amazing reactions from across the world," he said, adding that 17 foreign publishers already have bought rights. An audio version will be read by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The book launches in Rome March 20.
While the story of one of history's biggest villains fascinated the former politician, the innocence and miracle of the nativity story drew the attention of bestselling novelist Elizabeth Berg. The Handmaid and the Carpenter (Random House, Nov. 2006) retells the familiar story of the birth of a baby, beginning with the relationship between the 13-year-old Mary and the young carpenter Joseph, who is immediately attracted to her. "It was such a compelling idea," said the Chicago-area author of Open House, an Oprah Book Club selection in 2000. "What I was interested in was a kind of innocent and rich story that would allow for a belief in miracles." The book is an inquiry into the nature of faith. "Writing this book tuned me in, in a very meaningful way, to what people get out of religion," Berg said. No sequels beckon, however--the novelist's next book, Dream When You're Feeling Blue (Random House, May), is set in World War II.
For Anne Rice, sequel is a specialty. The author famous for her career-long fascination with vampires and New Orleans is hard at work on the second book of her exploration of the life of Jesus, which will follow Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (Knopf, 2005). A paperback edition released in November, and Rice did the screenplay for a film version in development. Rice is expected to finish the manuscript of her new book sometime this year.
