Synopses & Reviews
Author of
Emma Who Saved My Life and
Lookaway, Lookaway Gospel concerns the search for a lost first-century gospel of the Bible, a document that could shake the foundations of Christianity. Wilton Barnhardts narrative races through three continents, nine countries, and dozens of colorful locales, as two characters—shy theological student Lucy Dantan and hard-drinking, disillusioned ex-Jesuit Patrick OHanrahan—pursue rumors and clues about the gospels whereabouts and contents. In the end, what they discover will challenge and forever change the nature of faith.
An intellectual detective story with the erudition of Umberto Eco and the grand swirling entertainment of a nineteenth-century novel, Gospel is exciting, profound, revent, and terrifically funny.
Review
"Wilton Barnhardt has written a splendid novel on all counts. The scholarship of Gospel is as formidable as its premise is original, its pages are stuffed with fascinating religious erudition and it poses some curly theological questions. Like all complicated books, Gospel takes time to get into, but once characters and plot are established, it proceeds, smoothly accelerating, in workmanlike prose that is eminently readable and lyrical only when it ought to be....It is a story of loneliness and confusion of the spirit, of the triumph of faith over pursuit of the truth." Colleen McCullough, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"A robust mix of prodigious scholarship and engaging plot." Chicago Tribune
Review
"Barnhardt's erudition is astonishing, yet it's totally accessible. If you loved Byatt's Possession, Palliser's The Quincunx, or Eco's The Name of the Rose, then here is the big, addictive epic you've been waiting for." Diane Wakoski
Review
"Barnhardt has got such great imagination and wit, and erudition enough to recreate the gospel itself in these pages, that is the kind of book...you want to linger with and relish." Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio
Review
"In O'Hanrahan and Lucy (and to a lesser degree Rabbi Hersch), Barnhardt has two interesting characters and he has developed them artfully. O'Hanrahan,in particular, moves from a tiresome old man, addicted to alcohol and to scatological stories, to a remorseful penitent, full of regrets for a wasted life....Lucy, too, grows and changes in the course of the book....These two are the linchpins of the book. They hold it together amidst a host of minor characters and irrelevant information. It is clear that Barnhardt is up on his biblical studies, as is evident from the heavily footnoted gospel, but the constantly burgeoning flow of stories, discussions, and legends does nothing but slow down the movement of the novel." Elizabeth Bartelme, Commonweal
Synopsis
Gospel concerns the search for a lost first-century gospel of the Bible, a document that could shake the foundations of Christianity. Wilton Barnhardt's narrative races through three continents, nine countries, and dozens of colorful locales, as two character--shy theological student Lucy Dantan and hard-drinking, disillusioned ex-Jesuit Patrick O'Hanrahan--pursue rumors and clues about the gospel's whereabouts and contents. In the end, what they discover will challenge and forever change the nature of faith.
An intellectual detective story with the erudition of Umberto Eco and the grand swirling entertainment of a nineteenth-century novel, Gospel is exciting, profound, reverent, and terrifically funny.
Synopsis
Author of Lookaway, LookawayGospel concerns the search for a lost first-century gospel of the Bible, a document that could shake the foundations of Christianity. Wilton Barnhardt's narrative races through three continents, nine countries, and dozens of colorful locales, as two character--shy theological student Lucy Dantan and hard-drinking, disillusioned ex-Jesuit Patrick O'Hanrahan--pursue rumors and clues about the gospel's whereabouts and contents. In the end, what they discover will challenge and forever change the nature of faith.
An intellectual detective story with the erudition of Umberto Eco and the grand swirling entertainment of a nineteenth-century novel, Gospel is exciting, profound, reverent, and terrifically funny.
Synopsis
Gospel concerns the search for a lost first-century gospel of the Bible, a document that could shake the foundations of Christianity. Wilton Barnhardts narrative races through three continents, nine countries, and dozens of colorful locales, as two characters---shy theological student Lucy Dantan and hard-drinking, disillusioned ex-Jesuit Patrick OHanrahan---pursue rumors and clues about the gospels whereabouts and contents. In the end, what they discover will challenge and forever change the nature of faith.
An intellectual detective story with the erudition of Umberto Eco and the grand swirling entertainment of a nineteenth-century novel, Gospel is exciting, profound, revent, and terrifically funny.
About the Author
Wilton Barnhardt is the author of the author of three other novels: Show World, Lookaway, Lookaway and Emma Who Saved My Life. A native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he teaches fiction in the master of fine arts in creative writing program at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he lives.