As you probably know, there's some buzz about the work by Anne Rice coming out November 1. Called
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, it is a novel about the boy Jesus. It's a potentially touchy subject, so it's not surprising that some people are very cautious, but it looks promising to me. The subject is also a very difficult one for a novel; it's certainly the case that very, very few novels about Biblical subjects ever attain to the quality of
Ben Hur or
The Robe. Since she's narrating it from the perspective of the 7-year-old Son of God, Rice hasn't made it any easier on herself. But she might just have the writing skills to pull it off; her background in the Gothic is actually an excellent preparation for this sort of project. MSNBC has an
article on her decision to write this work. Apparently, the book is the first in a series, and a new start to Rice's writing career:
Rice already has much of the next volume written. ("Of course I've been advised not to talk about it.") But what's she going to do with herself once her hero ascends to Heaven? "If I really complete the life of Christ the way I want to do it," she says, "then I might go on and write a new type of fiction. It won't be like the other. It'll be in a world that includes redemption."
It will probably be a while before I get to it, but when I read it, you can be sure I'll say something about it here.
