Saved!
America gets religion and all hell breaks loose.
THE MESSIAH OF MORRIS AVENUE
A Novel
By Tony Hendra
Henry Holt. 245 pp. $24
Tony Hendra has been one of America's most cheerfully vicious satirists since his "Buy This Magazine or We'll Kill This Dog" days at National Lampoon back in the 1970s. Last year, however, he wrote a spiritual memoir called Father Joe, about his long friendship with a Benedictine monk whose wise advice guided him through difficult times. That confessional book was on the bestseller list when Hendra's integrity was called into question by incest allegations leveled by his daughter, first in the New York Times and then in her own book, How to Cook Your Daughter . Now, Hendra has gone over entirely to the spiritual lite side with a fundamentally unsatisfying novel called, The Messiah of Morris Avenue, set in a not-too-distant dogma-driven America.
By the time the novel begins the D.C. of the District of Columbia stands for Dominion of Christ, while out on the West Coast, Grauman's Chinese Theater has become Grauman's Christian Theater, and the Hollywood sign has lost one "l." Things have gone so far that legislators are considering making non-procreative sex illegal, and a cabal of government and church officials is planning to bomb Israel to usher in Armageddon.
Hendra's narrator, a cynical, militantly secular reporter named Johnny Greco, isn't doing well in the new dispensation. Banished from the "paper of record" after penning a blasphemous exposé, he's landed on the "Nutlog" beat at an Internet site owned by a Bangalore company that reaps enormous profits from sex ads.
But Johnny's lack of faith is about to be tested. He hears tales of a young man with a small posse traveling around Camden, N.J., and the grittier cities of the Northeast, miraculously saving lives along with souls. Dubiously, Johnny pursues the lead and eventually tracks José Francisco Lorcan Kennedy to his mother Maria's home in the Bronx.
José, known as Jay, has a "quiet, husky" look and speaks with "a certain poetry." The man seeks no publicity and speaks to Johnny with a wisdom beyond his years or distinctive fleece jacket. Rumor has it that he's turned a vat of lemonade into Chardonnay at a wedding. In case you don't get it, Jay is fully willing to admit to being the second coming of Christ, and the rest of the narrative unspools according to a well-known blueprint.
Obviously, Jay is a threat to the forces of faith led by the Rev. James Sabbath, Oscar host and "Talibangelist" extraordinaire. After all, Jay's fleece has "powerful political implications." Masses flock to hear him. Authorities swoop in. There's a trial and a uniquely contemporary execution, after which "the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles order Bloody Marys from the bar."
Of course, there's no reason not to retell a narrative as potent as that of the New Testament. But Hendra hits two conflicting notes, creating a discordance that does credit to neither sacrilege nor spirituality. First, his satire of modern culture is shotgun-broad rather than rapier-scathing. He relies on one-liners built out of wordplay, hyperbole and brand names. In a span of 15 pages, he refers to an "ancient forty-inch TV," an "ancient Thinkpad 3000" and an "ancient Gulfstream 550." The wit is pleasant, but then it becomes wearing and ultimately reductive.
Second, Hendra doesn't seem to have much faith in his own creation; he simply jettisons its constructs when they don't suit him. Internal contradictions abound. If sex is nearly illegal, how do pornographic movies like "He's Titanic" earn billions? Though there are hardly any serious media left on the planet, an article that Johnny writes about Jay raises a ruckus. Overnight, Jay goes from his band of three or four followers to vast gatherings in Madison Square Garden.
Similarly, many of the characters are of no consequence. Kumi, Johnny's assistant, leaks his boss's research but never returns. Evan Whittaker, a former pro football player, drops out of the book moments after he's introduced as Rev. Sabbath's aide de camp, then returns hundreds of pages later to mend his ways. Neither they nor most of the other characters have more than a name and a single, frequently ethnic, attribute.
Not even Jay carries any real heft, human or divine. When he's not offering fuzzy platitudes such as "We need to live in a world of forgiveness," he channels a cheesy stand-up comic by saying of the Rapture, "Frankly, it's Crapture." Then, on a dime, he shifts to, "Flesh and blood touching flesh and blood. Life touching life," which sounds like the gospel according to Neil Diamond.
Besides glib incongruity, all one gets from The Messiah of Morris Avenue is a sense of haste. Hendra vaguely explains this on an acknowledgments page where he refers to the book's having been "written on a fast track with the clock ticking." He should have taken his time. It's what Jesus would have done. ·
Melvin Jules Bukiet is the author or editor of 10 books, including the forthcoming "Scribblers on the Roof." He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
