Towing Jehovah by James K. Morrow

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about James K. Morrow's Towing Jehovah.

The Short of It

Plot: God is dead, and the angels need his giant corpse hauled to the Arctic for burial. 

Page Count: 371

Award: 1995 World Fantasy Award 

Worth a read: No
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character) 
Bechdel Test: Pass
Technobabble: None.
Review: A brilliant short story which far overstays its welcome. Characters are established well and have some neat arcs. Truly excellent opening hook which is let down by the book that follows. Pacing turns extremely choppy. This is not so much a novel as a point to prove: and the point is reiterated to death.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

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. 

"Our mutual Creator has passed away," said Raphael with a sigh compounded of pain, exhaustion, and grief.

"What?"

"God died."

Anthony took an involuntary step backward. "That's crazy."

"Died and fell into the sea." Raphael clamped his cold fingers around the tattooed mermaid on Anthony's naked forearm and abruptly drew him closer. "Listen carefully, Captain Van Horne. You're going to get your ship back."

...As the angel guided Anthony into the foyer, his tears started up again. "We can't let Him rot. We can't leave Him to the predators and worms."

"God doesn't have a body. God doesn't die."

"God has a body, and for reasons wholly obscure to us, that body has expired."

The first chapter of Towing Jehovah is fantastic. The stage is set expertly: enough information to raise questions while keeping . Captain Van Horne has personal stakes: he is a failed captain, having crashed his boat, and this is his chance for redemption. God's body needs to be moved before it rots, so we have a ticking clock. And the dying angel adds credence to the claim that this is, in fact, God. That's how you write a hook. Without hyperbole one of the best first chapters of any book I've read.

All of this raises a slew of interesting questions. The issue with Morrow is that he tends not to deliver on answers. And this is where the book suffers. It's a slow, steady downhill from the end of chapter one on. For the first hundred pages or so, things stay decent: moderately clever approaches to the ramifications of God's death, coupled with the simple practical logistical concerns of hauling a two mile long corpse behind a boat. It's a clever way of pairing problems: the higher-level impacts of the loss of God reduced to a shipping issue. 

Yet Towing Jehovah simply does not deliver on its promise. It stretches thin and reiterates its points over and over. Characters grow in awkward starts and stops and the feeling is often more that we are being informed of a change they have undergone than viewing actual growth. Pacing falls apart completely, with out-of-place action sequences tossed in ad hoc to liven up otherwise dry stretches of fifty pages. Different iterations of the same handful of events occur multiple times in a row to really hammer things in. And on the most basic level, Morrow's suggestions for what it would mean for God to die are just... bland. 

I have rarely feel more disrespected by an author as when reading Towing Jehovah. Morrow's need to reinforce extremely simplistic ideas feels like he assumes his readers cannot comprehend basic concepts. It just hurts to read by the end. Going back over the start of the book now for this review makes it even worse: again, that first chapter absolutely slaps. It's inspired. It really is phenomenal. And then the rest of the book sorta, kinda, a little bit... sucks.

The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

Turns out that proof of God's death is enough to make a lot of people get a bit crazy. No God to watch over folks, no reason for them not to give in to their basest desires. That's the point. That's what happens. Over and over again. And of course there's a counter-current of "people are still decent" as the balancing force. But that's about it. Priest having sex in God's belly button? Cannibalism? Murder? Yeah, those are all things that happen. Because God is dead. Which means that there's no reason not to. 

Cool.

Not a good way to keep a book going. 

There are more plot points, of course. The Church wants to obliterate the body to destroy proof of God's death, there's a mutiny or two, and there are issues with the actual shipping and hauling of the corpse. But all of these are window dressing; they're bits and baubles that are tacked around the heart of the issue: God is dead, what does that mean. The plot beats as they are do not do much for the book. However, even if they really were fantastic, if the answer to "What does God's death mean?" were still the same tepid "meh" that is there now... the book fails. It is a thought piece without enough thought.

This "Long of It" is going to stay short, because the good and bad of the matter have already been pounded out to the degree that they would make a good schnitzel.

You can look forward to having almost the same review for the two sequels to this book...

Well, I'll be damned, Stranger!

And don't forget to read a book.