A past winner of the World Fantasy Award, Morrow could easily claim another prize, for the year's most outlandish fictional premise, if there were prizes for such things. When God Himself drops dead, leaving His two-mile-long corpse floating face up in the Atlantic, former sea captain Anthony Van Horne is recruited by a grieving archangel to haul the Corpus Dei to an icy tomb at the North Pole. Eager to redeem himself for indirectly causing the century's worst oil spill, Van Horne resumes command of his newly repaired supertanker, the Carpco Valparaiso, and speeds north with God in tow. Already faced with protecting the corpse against marauding predators from the air and the sea, Van Horne confronts a series of setbacks as absurd as the notion of his divine cargo--setbacks such as a plot by a rescued feminist castaway to bomb and sink the patriarchal corpse for the good of womankind. Writing a brand of masterfully understated comic prose all his own, Morrow is a genius, and this book is one of the most deliciously irreverent satirical sprees in years. Carl Hays
From Kirkus Reviews
God, ecology, WW II, chauvinism, the Vatican, and what-all are all thrown into another unclassifiable work from the author of Nebula Award-winner City of Truth (1992), etc. When sea captain Anthony Van Horne left the bridge of his oil tanker, the vessel ran aground and a major spillage occurred. Now a dying angel, Raphael, appears to Anthony, announcing that God has died, that His two- mile-long body is floating in the sea off Africa...and will Anthony please entomb the body in an iceberg according to His last wishes? Anthony, promised absolution from his oil-spill guilt, accepts. Aboard the tanker are various folks, including scientist Cassie Fowler, a militant atheist who believes the feminist cause is threatened by the body's very existence. The crew mutiny (God is dead, so there's no possibility of divine retribution). Eventually, the starving crew are reduced to eating the divine corpse. Many adventures later, the body is at last laid to rest. Witty, entertaining, and provocative--in some measure. But the plot makes little sense, and Morrow makes no serious attempt to grapple with the large issues he raises. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
God is dead. "Died and fell into the sea. " That's what Raphael, a despondent angel with luminous white wings and a blinking halo, tells Anthony Van Horne on his fiftieth birthday. Soon Van Horne is chared with captaining the supertanker Carpco Valparaiso (flying the colors of the Vatican) as it tows the two-mile-long corpse through the Atlantic toward the Arctic, in order to preserve Him from sharks and decomposition. Van Horne must also contend with ecological guilt, a militant girlfriend, an estranged father, sabotage both natural and spiritual, a crew on (and sometimes past) the brink of mutiny, and greedy hucksters of oil, condoms, and doubtful ideas. As he rings his wild, Vonnegutian changes on everything from male chauvinism to the Catholic Church, James Morrow proves himself to be one of the premier satirists of our time while still managing to capture some of the beauty and sorrow of the world. With Towing Jehovah, the Denver Post declared, Morrow solidifies his position as Christianity's Salman Rushdie, only funnier and more sacrilegious. -- Midwest Book Review
About the Author
James Morrow is an award-winning fiction author who has been writing since his seventh birthday. After receiving degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, he went on to write Only Begotten Daughter, which won the 1991 World Fantasy Award. He currently resides with his wife, their sheepdog, and their beagle in State College, Pennsylvania.
Eric G. Dove is a full-time voice actor, musician, and author, who released his first novel, Ghosts of Royston, in 2013 and who has several Nashville song cuts to his name. The winner of multiple Earphones awards, he has narrated over seventy audiobooks. A native of Ohio, he lives in Charleston, South Carolina. For more information, visit ericgdove.com.
