The Autobiography of God

By Julius Lester

Book Overview

Rebecca Nachman is a Rabbi without a synagogue. Having resigned from her dwindling congregation, she now works as a college counselor at a small Vermont college advising students about private matters and offering the "Jewish perspective" on issues raised at faculty dinner parties. Deeply lonely and on the edge of losing her faith, she comes into possession of a Torah, the last relic of Czechowa, a village of Polish Jews who were exterminated by the Nazis. With the Torah, the unquiet spirits of the village dead begin to visit Rebecca. On one visit they leave a manuscript written in Hebrew and titled My Life, an autobiography by God who, like any eager author, is seeking a sympathetic reader. No one has ever finished reading the manuscript, including Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Maimonides, and Augustine. God thinks Rebecca will. Rebecca's life is further complicated when one of her advisees-a troubled young woman who seemed on the verge of confessing something-is found murdered. As the college struggles to comprehend the tragedy and a police investigation is launched, Rebecca begins reading, and so comes to confront the central challenge to her faith in His most troubling and unlikely incarnation. Julius Lester's first adult novel in more than a decade, The Autobiography of God marks the return of an utterly original and provocative voice in American letters, addressing religion with wicked humor and profound reverence.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312288204
• ISBN13: 9780312288204
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Mind Excercise

This book is truly remarkable. If you do not mind putting your head on a triatholon than this book is for you. If you have ever wondered about the existance of another being than choose this book. You will be enlightened.

it made me think

What would you do if God put his autobiography on your living room table for you to read? Rebecca had the courage to read it, and to discuss it with the author. I would not be as brave as she. I am glad that she shared her story with us... it is powerful. Where is God when bad stuff happens, this is a start...

This writer has no fear!

I recommend this book to any serious reader who is interested in God, Judaism, the nature of good and evil, and who enjoys having the top of his or her head blown off (metaphorically speaking). Julius Lester's astonishing novel begins a little slow, but hold on tight, because things happen in this book that are both completely outrageous and completely acceptable. I guess it makes sense to call it magical realism, since the parts of this book that are the most magical and amazing are entirely plausible, practical, and real. His voice will be familiar to readers of his other work for adults and children: long talky "spoken" sentences breaking in every once in a while, metaphors nobody else dares to use, dead people who talk and who make good sense, and God not only as a writer, but as a writer fighting, over millenia, the frustration of wanting somebody, *somebody,* to think his stuff is worth reading. I am not going to give away the best parts of this book, but the crazier this book gets, the better it gets, and it gets very crazy indeed. Bravo.

Fascinating.

This book is amazing. The author covers so many topics: good, evil, love and the nature of God. It was interesting to read as a novel while causing me to thing about the "big questions" of life as well. It is written by a man but I kept forgetting that as I read because the character, who is a woman and a rabbi, is completely believable and real.