The Life of Jesus, the first novel by the American poet Toby Olson, is far from being the kind of work its title might imply. The book is neither historical fiction nor a devout retelling of the mission and passion of Christ. Rather, it is an unabashed and winning autobiographical novel told largely in terms of Gospel legend. As the author himself explains: "To a boy raised in the bosom of the Catholic Church in the early forties, the life of Jesus and the Holy Family was felt as his own idealized autobiography. His mother was of course a Virgin. His father, who was ill and died young, was more a watcher than a participant. And he himself was guilty, because he was not Jesus and could not cure his father. The Life of Jesus is a result of that somewhat tortured matrix.
"As the novel proceeds from the fairy-tale-like childhood of Jesus, through his public life of miracles, temptations, and teachings, it moves closer to autobiography. Only after Jesus has lived through the difficulties of being neither completely God nor Man is he able to proceed to his own necessary death, to return to his father.
"The mythology of this novel," Olson concludes, "is constructed from that sense of the life of Jesus which was received by a young boy, in Catholic school, from the Bible stories of Irish nuns."
Editorial Review(s)
"The Life of Jesus is a rare work. Alluringly erotic, imaginative, witty and funny, the book is a daring parable of twentieth-century autobiography. The New Testament as science fiction. The story of one's life as an understanding of miracle. Toby Olson's Life of Jesus is unique." --Diane Wakoski
About the Author
Toby Olson (born 1937 Chicago) is an American novelist. Through high school and his four years in the Navy as a surgical technician, he lived in California, Arizona, and Texas. He graduated from Occidental College and Long Island University. Toby Olson has published eight novels, the most recent of which – The Blond Box – appeared from Fiction Collective-2 in 2003; and numerous books of poetry, including Human Nature (New Directions). A new novel, The Bitter Half, is forthcoming. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts, Olson’s novel Seaview received the PEN/Faulkner award for The Most Distinguished Work of American Fiction in 1983. Toby Olson lives in Philadelphia and in North Truro, on Cape Cod
