Only Begotten Daughter [Hardcover]

James Morrow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1990

Call it a miracle or an accident at the sperm bank. But Julie Katz, the half-sister of Jesus, has been born to a celibate father. Soon poor Julie is tempted by the Devil and challenged by neo-Christian zealots-and that’s just the beginning of her fantastic odyssey through Hell, a seceded New Jersey, and her own confused soul. Winner of a 1991 World Fantasy Award.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Murray Katz, the celibate keeper of an abandoned lighthouse near Atlantic City, has been blessed with a daughter conceived of his own seed and a holy ovum. Like her half brother Jesus, Julie Katz can walk on water, heal the blind, and raise the dead. But being the Messiah isn't easy, and Julie, bewildered by her role in the divine scheme of things, is tempted by the Devil and challenged by neo- Christian zealots in this lively odyssey through Hell and New Jersey. Winner of the World Fantasy Award. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Highly imaginative , funny and irreverent, this off-beat fantasy recounts the life, death and rebirth of Julie Katz, daughter of God. In 1974, Murray Jacob Katz, a celibate Jewish recluse living in Atlantic City, N.J., gives birth to a child by inverse parthenogenesis at the Preservation Institute. He steals the fetus shortly before the place is blown up by the followers of the pastor of the First Ocean City Church of Saint John's Vision, the Reverend Billy Milk, who is preparing for the Second Coming by establishing the criteria described in Revelations. As Julie grows up, searching for her mother (God), she early demonstrates miraculous powers. Fearful, Murray forbids her to perform further miracles. Meanwhile, the Devil tries to whip up Milk and his followers for a religious crusade. Later, he takes Julie as an honored guest to Hell, where she meets her brother Jesus succoring the sinners. After being stripped of her powers, she returns to the world in the year 2012, when Milk has set up New Jersey as a theocracy and her disciples have created an underground religion. Morrow ( This Is the Way the World Ends ) has penned a lively, ironic, often raunchy gospel.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co (February 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688052843
• ISBN-13: 978-0688052843
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,529,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God for grown-ups, August 24, 2001

By 

Thomas Stearns (Chester, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Only Begotten Daughter (Harvest Book) (Paperback)

This is the most loving, incisive, courageous view of god I've encountered in 25 years of study in comparative religion and comparative mythology, as well as in 20 years as a minister. I won't repeat the book's plot structure, whose major details other reviewers have already given. Morrow's gift is to grapple with difficult issues that the world's leading religions don't like to touch, because they're messy and there are no pat answers: --What is the nature of divinity, and how can it act in the world? --Why does god allow suffering? Why do people cause it? --How do we account for the fact that so many of god's most rabid followers seem to be the most violent, maladjusted, and lost people, motivated by fear and despising the wonderful gifts of life on earth? --What is the nature of god and heaven, "the devil" and hell? --What would Jesus think about all this? --How can a woman claim her divinity in a world stocked with people who demonize everything feminine--including love, embodiment, compassion, and women themselves? --How is it possible to survive in a world largely inhabited by frightened, tiny-minded people who create a god in their own image, who project their worst weaknesses and tendencies onto "him," and who are closed to feeling or thinking, handing themselves over to being led by wiggy neurotics or violent psychotics? (After all, throughout religious history it seems to be highly religious people who do the most persecuting, create the most grief for other people, and hate the world that they claim god created.) --What would a mature spirituality look like--one grown past the father complexes and adolescent viewpoints of fundamentalism? What amazes me about this book (I'm currently reading it for the sixth time, with even more pleasure than the first time) is how easily and naturally Morrow tells the story. And with what deft detail, humor, and observation of the problem of religion in a secular society. In my experience, that's a sign of spiritual maturity (particularly the humor). I agree with the reviewer who observed that Morrow is probably lucky that this book got pigeon-holed as science fiction. I have never understood the concept of "heresy"--it seems to me the very word evokes moral and spiritual cowardice and contempt for god's love and tolerance--so when people say this is a heretical book, I can't follow that. This is a courageous book, full of love, tolerance, and clarity of heart. A term like "heresy" isn't on the radar. OBD is, for me, a myth of power, heart, and wisdom up there with some of the great myths of the human psyche. I think in particular of the ancient stories of the descent of the deity Inanna into the underworld. Yet Morrow goes even further than that. For me, this book blew open the gates of the new millennium, and gave me heart to consider that perhaps the human spirit is open to growing past the inherited fundamentalism of the past. We have much growing and maturing to do as a species. We resist taking responsibility as stewards of this earth, each other, and ourselves. That's unlikely to happen so long as we remain tethered in spirit to our image of a distant, inaccessible, violent father god with an apparent bipolar disorder, who holds us in contempt, is motivated by punishment and pleased by syncophancy, and communicates (we are told) through the mistranslated myths of Near Eastern desert tribes of two to six thousand years ago, now published in the form of a book edited by Renaissance churchmen and others who hold life on earth in contempt. Morrow asks us to drop our nostalgia and our adolescent view of god for something living, breathing, and grown up. That work of a living, breathing, grown up, creative relationship with god is a far cry from the dead, literalist fundamentalism that poses as religion, rather than some new approaches to using fear and the mass media to wring money out of frightened, hurting people. Eliot

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Humanity of god, the Inhumanity of Man, September 26, 2001

By 

Elderbear (Loma Linda, Aztlan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Only Begotten Daughter (Harvest Book) (Paperback)

"The Universe was a PhD thesis that God was unable to successfully defend." (p. 212)

If God is the Eternal Light, then why do His children live in such darkness? James Morrow wrestles with the age-old challenge of theodicy--how can an all-Good and all-Powerful Deity allow a world with suffering? His vehicle in this excursion is God's daughter, a fertilized ovum found in a male sperm donation, and brought to term in an artificial uterus.

The world is indeed a dark place, and Julie Katz, (That's "Miss God" to you!) seems to find herself in some of the darkest corners. Why is God so distant? Why are miracles so useless?

Religious fanatics and Devout Believers in Scientism both show up in bad form in this book. If you're an existentialist with a dark sense of humor, you'll love reading this. If you're a devout, evangelical Christian, I suspect you won't have as much fun.

Morrow writes well, he dares to tread on the teats of many a sacred cow, and he does so exquisitely well. For those who find their understanding of God and religion offended, I offer you this quote from Julie Katz "If somebody kick your right buttock, turn the other cheek." (p. 260)

Although the characters are somewhat charicaturish, they each have their own depth, motivation, and occasionally act to surprise the reader. The leading characters are more archetypal than human, and that is part of the book's power.

Morrow gets five stars for a solid, well engineered plot. Five stars for characters who live beyond the pages of the books & occasionally drift into our dreams. Five more stars for telling it well, with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Courage. Morrow gets about five billion stars for courage--after all, he's insulted every fundamentalist this side of Venus. Once Jerry Falwell gets done blaming the gays, pagans, ACLU & secular humanists for the World Trade Center disaster, he's likely to call for a Jihad against Morrow!

(If you'd like to respond to this review or discuss the book, please click on the "about me" link above and drop me an email. Thanks!)

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent, hilarious and bitter: a wild, wild ride!, December 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Only Begotten Daughter (Harvest Book) (Paperback)

Morrow spins the yarn this time about Julie Katz, the product of a Holy Ovum and Murray Katz's - Jewish lighthouse keeper and bibliophile - divinely ordained semen. Julie Katz's search for identity, heritage, and happiness leads her on a wild ride through Hell and the tri-state area. James Morrow's engaging, concrete style offers up a compelling and seamless blend of irreverence and sentimentality which, though often emotional, is never, ever maudlin. Not for those - religious or otherwise - with no sense of humour. I recommend Morrow's writings - any of them, particularly the Towing Jehovah series - only for the open-minded and for those who can have a good laugh without fear of eternal damnation (but we're all damned anyway, right?) :-) Pay particular attention to what Jesus says about the eucharist. In short, a five-star rating does not do justice to this book. I'd venture to give it more just for the laughs I got from reading the outraged "You shouldn't say those things about Jehovah!" reviews listed below.