Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt A Novel by Anne Rice Alfred A. Knopf, © 2005

I picked up this novel at the library with fear and trepidation. You see, I had read Anne Rice's Inteview with a Vampire (1976) and Cry to Heaven (1982) some years ago. After the latter, I decided not to read any more Anne Rice. Her amoral outlook throughout these otherwise wonderful books left one with a feeling of exhaustion and hopelessness. How could someone who wrote so beautifully and researched history so thoroughly have such a sad view of human nature and life?

Well, I picked it up anyway because the title was so intriguing. My devout daughter saw it on my hearth with other books I had checked out and said, "You're not going to read that are you? I'd be afraid to see what she would do to Christ."

So I began reading and waited for the clinker. What would it be - Christ the promiscuous homosexual, Christ the charlatan, Christ the fraud, Christ the vampire. . . ?

I was more than half through when I realized that wasn't going to happen. Something must have happened to Anne Rice to make her write a book like this.

In it she delves into the missing years between Christ's birth in Bethlehem and the next time we see him in scripture, discoursing with learned rabbi's in the temple in Jerusalem, while his worried family looked for him.

Who hasn't wondered about those years? Was Jesus ever a child like other children? How was he taught? What was his family life like? How did he come to terms with his unique calling?

Anne Rice attempts to answer these questions through a child's eyes, with scrupulous (as always) attention to the historical facts of life in the first century and a deep insight into how an observant Jewish family would have lived. In the course of this lyrical look at Jesus the child, the reader:

• Meets James, the older brother and hears James's version of what happened at Jesus' birth in Bethlehem
• Sees another, more manly and strong Joseph, the master carpenter, head of his clan
• Meets Elizabeth and her son John, soon to join the Essenes and become John the Baptist
• Understands something of what it must have been like to live in a land ruled by Rome
• Sees a vivid portrayal of what the Temple in Jerusalem must have been like as seen through the eyes of a child, with its money changers, bloody sacrifices, ritual baths, and political turmoil
• Comes to understand the importance of lineage in a Jewish family and, especially, of Jesus' double descent from King David

All of this is of great historical interest and lets you see a Jesus you never before imagined. But the best part of the novel, and I won't spoil this for you, is Anne Rice's Author's Note provided as an afterword, in which she describes her personal journey from near-atheism (her husband was an activist atheist) back to belief.

You'll also find here a daunting bibliography of books that helped Rice in her journey.

If you have ever wondered about those missing years, if you have ever wondered why the Jewish people, despite so much adversity, have survived so well and so long, you'll enjoy and profit from this book.

GL

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