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Anne Rice

Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana Paperback – February 1, 2011

by Anne Rice (Author)

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Book 2 of 2: Life of Christ

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The second novel in Anne Rice's hugely ambitious, moving, and masterful portrayal of the life of Christ, following Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt.

It’s a winter of no rain, endless dust, and talk of trouble in Judea. All who know and love Jesus find themselves waiting for some sign of the path he will eventually take. After his baptism, he is at last ready to confront his destiny. At the wedding at Cana, he takes water and transforms it into red wine. Thus, he’s recognized as the anointed one and called by God the Father to begin a ministry that will transform an unsuspecting world.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Anchor
Publication date

February 1, 2011
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.8 x 8.1 inches
ISBN-10

9780307741196
ISBN-13

978-0307741196
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana

“Hypnotic, incantatory. . . . Readers will be lured by the promise of simply rendered holiness.” —The New York Times

“Rice couples her writing talents with the zeal of a recent convert and a passion for historical research. . . . Remarkable for Rice’s prose and rich sensory detail.” —Christianity Today

“A masterful book written by an extraordinary writer at the height of her powers.” —All Things Considered

“Rice brings a liveliness and palpable joy to the material.” —Los Angeles Times

“A remarkable achievement. . . . An engaging story told within the structure of biblical narrative and theological orthodoxy.” —Father Richard Neuhaus, publisher, First Things

“A masterful book written by an extraordinary writer at the height of her powers. It deserves to be read for that reason alone. But it also deserves to be read to better understand the most dynamic and important person in human history – Christ the Lord.” —All Things Considered

“Rice brings a liveliness and palpable joy to the material.” —Los Angeles Times

“[Written] with reverence, marvelous scholarship, and a faithful portrayal to present the mystery God’s dwelling among humankind.” —Archbishop Oscar H. Lipscomb

“Compelling. . . . Rice emphasizes Christ’s humanity as few authors have done.” —Rocky Mountain News

About the Author

Anne Rice is the author of thirty-five books. She lives in Palm Desert, California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Who is Christ the Lord?Angels sang at his birth. Magi from the East brought gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They gave these gifts to him, and to his mother, Mary, and the man, Joseph, who claimed to be his father.In the Temple, an old man gathered the babe in his arms. The old man said to the Lord, as he held the babe, “A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”My mother told me those stories.That was years and years ago.Is it possible that Christ the Lord is a carpenter in the town of Nazareth, a man past thirty years of age, and one of a family of carpenters, a family of men and women and children that fill ten rooms of an ancient house, and, that in this winter of no rain, of endless dust, of talk of trouble in Judea, Christ the Lord sleeps in a worn woolen robe, in a room with other men, beside a smoking brazier? Is it possible that in that room, asleep, he dreams?Yes. I know it’s possible. I am Christ the Lord. I know. What I must know, I know. And what I must learn, I learn.And in this skin, I live and sweat and breathe and groan. My shoulders ache. My eyes are dry from these dreadful rainless days–from the long walks to Sepphoris through the gray fields in which the seeds burn under the dim winter sun because the rains don’t come.I am Christ the Lord. I know. Others know, but what they know they often forget. My mother hasn’t spoken a word on it for years. My foster father, Joseph, is old now, white haired, and given to dreaming.I never forget.And as I fall asleep, sometimes I’m afraid–because my dreams are not my friends. My dreams are wild like bracken or sudden hot winds that sweep down into the parched valleys of Galilee.But I do dream, as all men dream.And so this night, beside the brazier, hands and feet cold, under my cloak, I dreamed.I dreamed of a woman, close, a woman, mine, a woman who became a maiden who became in the easy tumult of dreams my Avigail.I woke. I sat up in the dark. All the others lay sleeping still, with open mouths, and the coals in the brazier were ashes.Go away, beloved girl. This is not for me to know, and Christ the Lord will not know what he does not want to know–or what he would know only by the shape of its absence.She wouldn’t go–not this, the Avigail of dreams with hair tumbled down loose over my hands, as if the Lord had made her for me in the Garden of Eden.No. Perhaps the Lord made dreams for such knowing– or so it seemed for Christ the Lord.I climbed up off the mat, and quietly as I could, I put more coals into the brazier. My brothers and my nephews didn’t stir. James was off with his wife tonight in the room they shared. Little Judas and Little Joseph, fathers both, slept here tonight away from little ones huddled around their wives. And there lay the sons of James–Menachim, Isaac, and Shabi, tumbled together like puppies.I stepped over one after another and took a clean robe from the chest, the wool smelling of the sunshine in which it had been dried. Everything in that chest was clean.I took the robe and went out of the house. Blast of cold air in the empty courtyard. Crunch of broken leaves.And for a moment in the hard pebbly street I stopped and looked up at the great sweep of glittering stars beyond the huddled rooftops.Cloudless, this cold sky, and so filled with these infinitesimal lights, it seemed for a moment beautiful. My heart hurt. It seemed to be looking at me, enfolding me–a thing of kindness and witness–an immense web flung out by a single hand–rather than the vast inevitable hollow of the night above the tiny slumbering town that spilled like a hundred others down a slope between distant caves of bones and thirsting fields, and groves of olive trees.I was alone.Somewhere far down the hill, near the sometime marketplace, a man sang in a low drunken voice and a spark of light shone there, in the doorway of the sometime tavern. Echo of laughter.But all the rest was quiet, without a torch to light the way.The house of Avigail across from ours was shut up like any other. Inside, Avigail, my young kinswoman, slept with Silent Hannah, her sweet companion, and the two old women who served her and the bitter man, Shemayah, who was her father.Nazareth did not always have a beauty. I’d seen generations of young maidens grow up, each fresh and lovely to behold as any flower in the wild. Fathers did not want their daughters to be beauties. But Nazareth had a beauty now, and it was Avigail. She’d refused two suitors of late, or so her father had done on her behalf, and there was a real question in the minds of the women of our house as to whether Avigail herself even knew the suitors had come calling.It fell hard on me suddenly that I would sometime very soon be standing among the torchbearers at her wedding. Avigail was fifteen. She might have been married a year ago, but Shemayah kept her close. Shemayah was a rich man who had but one thing and one thing alone that made him happy, and that was his daughter, Avigail.I walked up the hill and over the top. I knew every family behind every door. I knew the few strangers who came and went, one huddled in a courtyard outside the Rabbi’s house, and the other on the roof above where so many slept, even in winter. It was a town of day-to-day quiet, and seemingly not a single secret.I walked down the other side of the slope until I came to the spring, the dust rising with every step I took, until I was coughing from it.Dust and dust and dust.Thank You, Father of the Universe, that this night is not so cold, no, not as cold as it might be, and send us the rain in Your own good time because You know that we need it.Passing the synagogue, I could hear the spring before I saw it.The spring was drying up, but for now it still ran, and it filled the two large rock-cut basins in the side of the hill, and spilled down in glistening streaks to the rocky bed it followed off and away into the distant forest.The grass grew soft here and fragrant.I knew that in less than an hour, the women would be coming, some to fill jugs, others, the poorer women, to wash their clothes here as best they could and beat them on the rocks.But for now the spring was mine.I stripped off the old robe and flung it down into the creek bed where the water soon filled it up and darkened it to where I couldn’t see it. I set the clean robe aside and approached the basin. With my cupped hands I bathed in the cold water, drenching my hair, my face, my chest, letting it run down my back and my legs. Yes, cast away the dreams like the old robe, and bathe them away. The dream woman has no name now and no voice, and what it was, that painful flicker when she laughed or reached out, well, that was gone, fading, like the night itself was fading, and gone too was the dust for this moment, the suffocating dust. There was only cold. There was only water.I lay down on the far bank, opposite the synagogue. The birds had begun, and as always I’d missed the exact moment. It was a game I played, trying to hear the very first of the birds, the birds that knew the sun was coming when no one else did.I could see the big thick palm trees around the synagogue emerging from the clump of shapeless shadows. Palms could grow in a drought. Palms didn’t care if the dust coated every branch. Palms went on as if made for all seasons.The cold was outside me. I think my beating heart kept me warm. Then the first light seeped up over the distant bluff, and I picked up the fresh robe, and slipped it over my head. So good, this, this luxuriously clean cloth, this fresh-smelling cloth.I lay back down again and my thoughts drifted. I felt the breeze before I heard the trees sigh with it.Far up the hill was an old olive grove to which I loved to go at times to be alone. I thought of it now. How good it would be to lie in that soft bed of dead leaf and sleep the day away.But there was no chance of it, not now with the tasks that had to be done, and with the village charged with new worries and new talk over a new Roman Governor come to Judea, who, until he settled in as every other Governor had done, would trouble the land from one end to the other.The land. When I say the land, I mean Judea and Galilee as well. I mean the Holy Land, the Land of Israel, the Land of God. It was no matter that this man didn’t govern us. He governed Judea and the Holy City where the Temple stood, and so he might as well have been our King instead of Herod Antipas. They worked together, these two, Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, and this new man, Pontius Pilate, whom men feared, and beyond Jordan Herod Philip ruled and worked with them as well. And so the land had been carved up for a long, long time, and Antipas and Philip we knew, but Pontius Pilate we didn’t know and the reports were already evil.What could a carpenter in Nazareth do about it? Nothing, but when there was no rain, when men were restive and angry and full of fear, when people spoke of the curse of Heaven on the withering grass, and Roman slights, and an anxious Emperor gone into exile in mourning for a son poisoned, when all the world seemed filled with the pressure to put one’s shoulder to it and push, well, in such a time, I didn’t go off to the grove of trees to sleep the day away.It was getting light.A figure broke from the dark shapes of the houses of the village, hurrying downhill towards me, one hand upraised. My brother James. Older brother–son of Joseph and Joseph’s first wife who died before Joseph married my mother. No mistaking James, for his long hair, knotted at the back of his neck and streaming down his back, and his narrow anxious shoulders and the speed with which he came, James the Nazirite, James, the captain of our band of workers, James, who now in Joseph’s old age was head of the family.He stopped at the far side of the little spring, mostly a broad swatch of dry stones now with the glittering ribbon of water gurgling through the center of it, and I could plainly make out his face as he stared at me. He stepped on one big stone after another as he came across the creek to me. I had sat up and now I climbed to my feet, a common enough courtesy for my older brother. “What are you doing out here?” he demanded. “What’s the matter with you? Why do you always worry me?”I didn’t say anything.He threw up his hands and looked to the trees and the fields for an explanation.“When will you take a wife?” he asked. “No, don’t stop me, don’t put up your hand to me to silence me. I will not be silenced. When will you take a wife? Are you wed to this miserable creek, to this cold water? What will you do when it runs dry, and it will this year, you know.”I laughed under my breath.He went right on.“There are two men as old as you in this town who’ve never married. One is crippled. The other’s an idiot, and everyone knows this.”He was right. I was past thirty and not married.“How many times have we talked about this, James?” I asked.It was a beautiful thing to watch the growing light, to see the color coming to the palms clustered around the synagogue. I thought I heard shouting in the distance. But perhaps it was just the usual noises of a town tearing off its blankets.“Tell me what’s really eating at you this morning?” I asked. I picked up the wet robe from the stream and spread it out on the grass where it would dry. “Every year you come to look more like your father,” I said, “but you never have your father’s face really. You never have his peace of mind.”“I was born worried,” he confessed with a shrug. He was looking anxiously towards the village. “Do you hear that?”“I hear something,” I said.“This is the worst dry spell we’ve ever had,” he said, glancing up at the sky. “And cold as it is, it’s not cold enough. You know the cisterns are almost empty. The mikvah’s almost empty. And you, you are a constant worry to me, Yeshua, a constant worry. You come out here in the dark to the creek. You go off to that grove where no one dares to go. . . .”“They’re wrong about that grove,” I said. “Those old stones mean nothing.” That was a village superstition, that something pagan and dreadful had once taken place in that grove. But it was the mere ruins of an old olive press in there, stones that went way back to the years before Nazareth had been Nazareth. “I tell you this once a year, don’t I? But I don’t want to worry you, James.”

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0307741192
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Anchor; Reprint edition (February 1, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780307741196
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307741196
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.8 x 8.1 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #402,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #710 in Religious Historical Fiction (Books)
- #1,410 in Biographical Historical Fiction
- #2,109 in Christian Historical Fiction (Books)

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Anne Rice

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Anne Rice was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in English and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, as well as a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science. Anne has spent more of her life in California than in New Orleans, but New Orleans is her true home and provides the back drop for many of her famous novels. The French Quarter provided the setting for her first novel, Interview with the Vampire. And her ante-bellum house in the Garden District was the fictional home of her imaginary Mayfair Witches.

She is the author of over 30 books, most recently the Toby O'Dare novels Of Love and Evil, and Angel Time; the memoir, Called Out of Darkness;and her two novels about Jesus, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. (Anne regards Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana as her best novel.) ---- Under the pen name, A.N. Roquelaure, Anne is the author of the erotic (BDSM) fantasy series, The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy. Under the pen name Anne Rampling she is the author of two erotic novels, Exit to Eden and Belinda.

Anne publicly broke with organized religion in July of 2010 on moral grounds, affirming her faith in God, but refusing any longer to be called "Christian." The story attracted surprising media attention, with Rice's remarks being quoted in stories all over the world. Anne hopes that her two novels about Jesus will be accepted on their merits by readers and transcend her personal difficulties with religion. "Both my Christ the Lord novels were written with deep conviction and a desire to write the best novels possible about Jesus that were rooted in the bible and in the Christian tradition. I think they are among the best books I've ever been able to write, and I do dream of a day when they are evaluated without any connection to me personally. I continue to get a lot of very favorable feedback on them from believers and non believers. I remain very proud of them."

Anne is very active on her FaceBook Fan Page and has well over a million followers. She answers questions every day on the page, and also posts on a variety of topics, including literature, film, music, politics, religion, and her own writings. Many indie authors follow the page, and Anne welcomes posts that include advice for indie authors. She welcomes discussion there on numerous topics. She frequently asks her readers questions about their response to her work and joins in the discussions prompted by these questions.

Her novel, "The Wolves of Midwinter," a sequel to "The Wolf Gift" and part of a werewolf series set in Northern California in the present time, will be published on October 15, 2013. In these books --- The Wolf Gift Chronicles -- Anne returns to the classic monsters and themes of supernatural literature, similar to those she explored in her Vampire Chronicles, and tales of the Mayfair Witches. Her new "man wolf" hero, Reuben Golding, is a talented young man in his twenties who suddenly discovers himself in possession of werewolf powers that catapult him into the life of a comic book style super hero. How Reuben learns to control what he is, how he discovers others who possess the same mysterious "wolf gift," and how he learns to live with what he has become --- is the main focus of the series. "The Wolves of Midwinter" is a big Christmas book --- a book about Christmas traditions, customs, and the old haunting rituals of Midwinter practiced in Europe and in America. It's about how the werewolves celebrate these rituals, as humans and as werewolves. But the book also carries forward the story of Reuben's interactions with his girl friend, Laura, and with his human family, with particular focus on Reuben's father, Phil, and his brother, Jim. As a big family novel with elements of the supernatural, "The Wolves of Midwinter" has much in common with Anne's earlier book, "The Witching Hour." Among the treats of "The Wolves of Midwinter" is a tragic ghost who appears in the great house at Nideck Point, and other "ageless ones" who add their mystery and history to the unfolding revelations that at times overwhelm Reuben.

In October of 2014, with the publication of "Prince Lestat," Anne returned to the fabled "Brat Prince" of the Vampire Chronicles, catching up with him in present time. This is the first of several books planned focusing on Lestat's new adventures with other members of the Vampire tribe. When the publication of "Prince Lestat" was announced on Christopher Rice's "The Dinner Party Show," a weekly internet radio broadcast, it made headlines in the US and around the world. "Prince Lestat" debuted at #3 on the New York Times Best Seller list and ran for nine weeks during the height of the competitive Fall-Winter season, with another week on the extended NYTBSL. ----

"Beauty's Kingdom," is the fourth in her "Sleeping Beauty Erotica Series," and the first to be launched in hardcover. Though the first three novels were published in the 1980's under the pseudonym, A.N. Roquelaure, the name, Anne Rice, was added to the series in the 1990's. About her erotica, Anne has this to say: "I believe in the erotic imagination. I believe men and women have a right to write and read erotic fantasies. My goal with the "Sleeping Beauty" books is to provide the most authentic erotica that I can for those who share BDSM fantasies."

"Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis" was published on November 29th, 2016 revealing a new adventure in the life of the Brat Prince of the vampires, and the entire tribe --- as they confront the most difficult challenge they've ever faced. This novel may introduce Lestat and extend his appeal to science fiction readers and fantasy readers who love differing versions of the lost kingdom of Atlantis. The novel does justice to both themes: Atlantis and Lestat. So far, as of early 2016, this novel has received a remarkably positive response with Amazon reviewers.

Anne's first novel, Interview with the Vampire, was published in 1976 and has gone on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time. She continued her saga of the Vampire Lestat in a series of books, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles, which have had both great mainstream and cult followings.

Interview with the Vampire was made into a motion picture in 1994, directed by Neil Jordan, and starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas. The film became an international success. Anne's novel, Feast of All Saints about the free people of color of ante-bellum New Orleans became a Showtime mini series in 2001 and is available now on dvd. The script for the mini series by John Wilder was a faithful adaptation of the novel.

Near the end of 2016, the theatrical rights to the Vampire Chronicles reverted fully and completely to Anne. She and her son, Christopher Rice, are now developing outlines and scripts for a new television series based on the adventures of The Vampire Lestat. Anne's announcement of this on FB reached well over 2 million people. "The reception in the Hollywood community" has been very simply wonderful," says Anne. "We have high hopes that we will see the Lestat television series go into production before the end of 2017."

Anne Rice is also the author of other novels, including The Witching Hour, Servant of the Bones, Merrick, Blackwood Farm, Blood Canticle, Violin, and Cry to Heaven. She lives in Palm Desert, California, but misses her home in New Orleans. She hopes to obtain a pied a terre in the French Quarter there some time in the near future.

Anne has this to say of her work: "I have always written about outsiders, about outcasts, about those whom others tend to shun or persecute. And it does seem that I write a lot about their interaction with others like them and their struggle to find some community of their own. The supernatural novel is my favorite way of talking about my reality. I see vampires and witches and ghosts as metaphors for the outsider in each of us, the predator in each of us...the lonely one who must grapple day in and day out with cosmic uncertainty."

------

Anne's announcement of the Vampire Chronicles series as it appeared on FB.

"The theatrical rights to the Vampire Chronicles are once again in my hands, free and clear! I could not be more excited about this! --- A television series of the highest quality is now my dream for Lestat, Louis, Armand, Marius and the entire tribe. In this the new Golden Age of television, such a series is THE way to let the entire story of the vampires unfold. --- My son Christopher Rice and I will be developing a pilot script and a detailed outline for an open ended series, faithfully presenting Lestat’s story as it is told in the books, complete with the many situations that readers expect to see. We will likely begin with “The Vampire Lestat” and move on from there. ----- When we sit down finally to talk to producers, we will have a fully realized vision of this project with Christopher as the executive producer at the helm. I will also be an executive producer all the way. ---- Again, I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to be able to announce this. ---- As many of you know, Universal Studios and Imagine Entertainment had optioned the series to develop motion pictures from it, and though we had the pleasure of working with many fine people in connection with this plan, it did not work out. It is, more than ever, abundantly clear that television is where the vampires belong. ---- Over the years you all have told me how much you want to see a “Game of Thrones” style faithful rendering of this material, and how much you want for the series to remain in my control. Well, I have heard you. I have always heard you. What you want is what I want. --- You, the readers, made these books a success before any movie was ever made based on them, and I will never forget that fact. ---- Christopher and I will be posting many questions on the page for your input in the days to come. ----- I am filled with optimism this morning about the future for my beloved Brat Prince. What better way to start a tour for the new book!"

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Some stories were meant to be told. And some of these are meant to be told by Anne. (With spoilers!)

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2021

Verified Purchase

There are stories so vital that they are meant to be told. Such a one is this story.

And then, there are stories that are meant to be told by Anne Rice. And I thank God/the Cosmos/the Universe that she heeded the call to write Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana.

Originally published in 2008, this is the sequel to Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, which was made into a beautiful indie movie entitled The Young Messiah. I know that Ms. Rice meant to write a third novel but has abandoned the project. As to that, many has already been written
in various articles. Ms. Rice has spoken about that in her interviews with Nola Cancel. We need not go into that here.

The novel covers the events of Jesus' adult life before the wedding at Cana, recorded in the gospel according to St. John chapter 2. We find a fully human, flesh-and-blood Jesus here. One who was tempted in every way (just like I am, and so I relate to Him), as the writer of Hebrews attests, but is Sinless (and so I worship Him). This is not the Jesus of Relativism, shifted and reshaped according to our image and liking. This is a characterization delicately handled by Ms. Rice's rigorous research—which is her singular and distinct discipline for every book she writes.

It almost feels sacrilegious that, as an Anne Rice fan, Lestat de Lioncourt takes only second spot as my favorite character of hers. Yeshua bar Joseph takes the top spot. But this is true.

The voice of Jesus in this novel told in first person point-of-view is clearly distinct from the seven-year-old Child that He was in the first novel, Out of Egypt. In fact, every character in this novel has a distinct voice, and so everyone is memorable.

Jesus' daily life feels almost like rural Philippines (where I live). Everyone He meets and speaks to goes through a profound change, if they let Him. Whether it is having a private conversation with Him, or crying on His shoulder, or running to His arm for solace and rescue, Jesus changes people from within, gently and indelibly.

We know that the turning of the water into wine is Jesus' first recorded miracle in the gospel of John, and so Jesus in this novel acts with restraint in regards to His being God and All-Power. He has
assumed human form and human life, and decides in each moment to be fully human, to respect and submit to the customs of the tight-knit community He belongs to. He even succumbs to exhaustion, frustration, and loneliness, as we all sometimes do.

I am not interested in the many arguments or naysayers of supposed Bible scholars who panned and contested this work of historical fiction. There will always be volumes written about and will be written about this controversial Son of Man, and these "authorities" will inevitably contradict each other. In my opinion, Rice's depiction of Jesus does not betray the Gospels. That Rice has refused (hopefully she would change her mind) to write a third book is unfortunate, sure, but I can say that her two novels brought me to read the Gospel of John, which feels like a natural progression or continuation of the Christ the Lord books. And if these works of fiction brought me to reading the Gospel, then it works out for my good.

When I revisited John's Gospel, the Jesus John depicted felt all the more human, all the more flesh-and-blood, because of Anne's novels. Truly, the Word became flesh.

Rice's prose here is textured. You feel the dryness of the drought in the language, and then the thunderous, torrential rain, and the sprawling grandness of a Jewish wedding. She writes about events not told in the Bible, moving to the familiar events of Christ's baptism. Two chapters in and already I am weeping for the characters and the injustice they suffered. We feel for the women in this patriarchal society. We palpably feel the tension of the political climate and unrest (two things very real in 2021 as far as my country, and neighboring Myanmar, are concerned), that when the peace in their community was shaken (an important plot point!) I found myself screaming and gasping for breath. Even though we move to the events already told in the Gospels, I found my heart beating in eager anticipation and suspense at what will happen next. As a page-turner, this novel does not disappoint.

Rice's superb talent for writing horror is not lost in the Temptation scene in the desert. The nightmarish events are retold with such realism, that at Christ's triumph I found my heart rejoicing, calling Jesus my Champion, my Hero!

The ending, though, is my favorite part. And I cry out, "Yeshua! Yeshua! Yeshua! Hear O Israel. The Lord Our God Is One."

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Ginny E.

I can hardly speak, my heart and head are full of thoughts

Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2018

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This, together with her first book about Young Jesus, painted a story of Jesus that was more relatable and not as vague as what is told in the Bible. These stories allowed us to grow with the boy who was to be Christ our Savior when he became a man. Through it we can feel how Jesus grew into his God directed role, knowing instinctively how to bring the clay doves to life, but from within a child’s innocence, not fully comprehending the power of the miracle. And, it showed us that he was indeed a man, having all the feelings of a man, but destined to grow beyond them to fulfill his purpose. Thank you, Anne Rice.

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Judith Martin

Keep your copy of Josephus handy!

Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2016

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I could not help but think back to the novel Memnoch The Devil, and the scene where Lestat encounters The Lord out in the middle of the desert. It is at this point that the reader may expect there to be the inclusion of a first-person narrative by The Lord himself. Instead, Anne Rice has fulfilled that anticipation with two novels about the childhood and life up to about age 30 of Yeshua bar Joseph.

The Devil in "Cana" reminds me of both Memnoch (don't forget the wings), and the ghostly "Goblin" of Blackwood Farm -- Memnoch, because he thinks he is clever, and can make anyone believe what he claims is true, and Goblin, because he is a mirror image of Tarquin Blackwood, just as The Devil here materializes as a mirror image of Yeshua!

In both book, be sure to read the addenda for more reading, and information on the research and the use of literary (not historical) characters. If you have the time (time is a very important factor in Cana), find a copy of Josephus. Rice delved into his writings, and you owe it to yourself to see exactly what he had to say -- and why Rice chose him as an authoritative source.

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Orphan

Very thought provoking, beautifully written series.

Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2020

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I have read both books of Anne Rices' "Christ the Lord" series. I loved them each time a read them. Rice is a wonderfully
talented writer. I did believe that the series was to be a trilogy and am hoping that Rice will return to finish it. I have read several of her other works ( Angel Time, Of Love and Evil, Cry to Heaven), and enjoyed those too but feel that she is wasting her time and talent with her werewolf fiction. So sad to waste a talent like hers on that drivel.

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Top reviews from other countries

Cordula Roosa-Riedener

Anne just cannot help to be brilliant. Guess as another Catholic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 22, 2015

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Well, Anne just cannot help to be brilliant. Guess as another Catholic, who spent years away from the faith and am slowly finding my way back, there is a very deep connection to her work.

Andrew Connal

Anne Rice in religious mode

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2014

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The second of her Christ the Lord novels, based on the Gospels and Pseudepigrapha, and told in her fluent and convincing manner. There may be a few modern colourings but the story is well told and the dramatic tension is well maintained.

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Kindle Customer

Inspirational

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 5, 2013

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I thought this was a very interesting take on the life of Christ whilst remaining true to the gospels. The first person narrative attempted to give us an insight into how Jesus gradually became aware of his intended ministry. I know this is fiction but nonetheless I thought it a powerful and inspirational novel

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barker

I found this book to be a refreshing source of words and feelings. It's like one is reading the bible. I really enjoyed it and h

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 15, 2016

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I found this book to be a refreshing source of words and feelings. It's like one is reading the bible. I really enjoyed it and hope that there will be more like it.

M. Woischneck

Anne at her best

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2013

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different from her fantasy writing it takes us on a journey into the time and mores of The Lord - very well written and researched ! for christians and non-believers all the same, cause it s simply great historic writing !

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