"The irreducible strangeness of the universe was first made manifest to Anthony Van Horne on his fiftieth birthday, when a despondent angel named Raphael, a being with luminous white wings and a halo that blinked on and off like a neon quoit, appeared and told him of the days to come."
What Raphael tells Van Horne is that God, for unknown reasons, has died. "Died and fell into the sea." Soon Van Horne is charged with captaining the supertanker Carpco Valparaiso (flying the colors of the Vatican) as it …
"The irreducible strangeness of the universe was first made manifest to Anthony Van Horne on his fiftieth birthday, when a despondent angel named Raphael, a being with luminous white wings and a halo that blinked on and off like a neon quoit, appeared and told him of the days to come."
What Raphael tells Van Horne is that God, for unknown reasons, has died. "Died and fell into the sea." Soon Van Horne is charged with captaining the supertanker Carpco Valparaiso (flying the colors of the Vatican) as it tows the two-mile-long divine corpse through the Atlantic—northward toward the Arctic, in order to preserve Him from sharks and decomposition. Van Horne must also contend with ecological guilt, a militant girlfriend, a father who won't talk to him, sabotage both natural and spiritual, a crew on (and sometimes past) the brink of mutiny, and greedy hucksters of oil, condoms, and doubtful ideas.
James Morrow, one of the premier satirists of our time, has written a novel to entertain and provoke both science fiction and mainstream fiction audiences alike. As he rings his wild, Vonnegutian changes on male chauvinism, female chauvinism, oil companies, Darwin, junk food, World War II buffs, the Catholic Church, joyless rationalism, and Cecil B. DeMille, Morrow also manages to include some of the beauty and sorrow of the world.
