More Tea, Jesus?

"Jesus certainly didn't mess around making breakfast in the Bible." Indeed, he did not. I don't come from an Anglican tradition, but am a huge fan of the Vicar of Dibley and, while I have only read the first chapter so far, I look forward to getting to know the Little Collywestonites (or whoever they are). The premise alone warrants a spot on my shelf.

A tip of the bells on my jester's cap to you, James. This is brilliant satire! I only wish you had posted the entire story--I wanted to see how Jesus intervened.

Anyway, I though this book had it all--great characters, great dialogue, great pacing, even some philosophy to mull over. My only question is, why is this offering not ranked higher? Has it passed its desired shelf date? Or are there too few Authonomists of "the silent, thoughtful type who often turn out to be the worst kind of trouble maker."

In any event, I am nailing this book to my shelf and will spread the good word about it through what meager networking powers I have as an Authonomy Newbie. If I were a publisher, I would snatch this one up in a second. Good luck with its ascent or resurrection. I'd change nary a word.

Niobrara Kardnova (The Trouble With Wives)
outlivedhvswould this

The second gem of my day! Will return with a more mature comment. Meanwhile, shelved.

PS: Ohmy. That third chapter--with the discussion of Mass, and the former Catholic who was ordained an Anglican priest, and the dentist that "does" every priest in the area--is gloriously nutty, in the manner of "Father Ted." Or, alas, my own relatives, who were clergy....Tee hee...

I loved your pitch, and your writing is clear and easy to understand. But I am a fickle reader and I want a hook pretty quickly (on Authonomy, at least). I'm also an atheist, so asking me to read a book that is a bit like a manual for priests is pushing it somewhat - although I was hoping it might turn into something Father Tedd-ish. Sathan Petty-Saphon threw me into the ditch. That's an incredibly un-English name (Sathan = Satan?, I thought). Anyhoo, I don't know what to do... wait for you to edit it?

Hi James (Lark)--I was drawn to your novel because of the cover, synopsis and title. I am Hispanic so I am not fearful of Christianity. I found a way to fuse it to earth-based spirituality, like other Latinos and American Indians have done. And after I read The Da Vinci Code and several books on Mary Magdalene, I wanted to read more authentic novels posing some questions to modern Christianity.

Comedy and wit is a good way to tackle some of the issues that come up with contemporary Christianity and you do a fine job, starting with a vicar that cooks an omelette as part of a sermon--quicky and original. You have just enough description and your story flows well. Characters are believable and add to the quirkiness mentioned earlier, fabulous dialogue.

My favorite sections are the omelette and the various points of view of people associated with this scene. The lines about drinking too much of the body of Christ (the wine) is humorous, and the section about opera is also unusual and funny.

Your characters bring an authenticity to the clergy, congregation, etc...They are sympathetic and play well off one another. I am curious though to learn more about this Christ character who is only hovering in the background. I only read through chapter 3.

Shelved. Going to spend the week reading this novel--which means I will be shelving only 1 or 2 more novels this week.

Patricia

I’m always a little wary of a novel with ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christianity’ in the title, because quite often it’s an excuse for disparagement of the Church or Christians more generally, and, while there’s lots of room for that in specific cases, it strikes me that amongst intellectuals, it’s too easy a target. And most of those sorts of novels, when you read them, show that the author hasn’t bothered to find out about actual Christianity: what they’re concerned to disparage is their caricature of it.

I looked at your pitch, and it seemed gentle. It didn’t seem to be the sort of thing I’ve just outlined. To my huge relief, it wasn’t. It’s an excellent novel, really well written, but, more importantly, with a real familiarity with the Anglican tradition as it now exists. I knew this as soon as I read:

“If anybody ever understood the peculiarly Anglican tradition of family services, then they certainly never passed on their wisdom. In essence, they are church services which do not follow any recognised pattern or liturgy, which ensures that the clergy don’t know what they are doing.”

Yes, those sorts of services not only exist. They’re widespread. I’ve attended many of them. You tend to spend a long time singing, because that’s what young and old can do together (unless you’ve got a voice like mine). Songs like “The Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands” and “Jesus is Lord”. And it’s true: no-one knows what they’re doing there.

I’d recommend More Tea Jesus to anyone, but especially to Christians. It’s not disparaging at all. It’s affectionate. A bit like The Vicar of Dibley, but with a stronger theological point. Bookshelved.

Bren Verrill
The Weird Problem of Good.

James........LOL. This really is unique. As a card carrying atheist I was really interested, from the title alone, what this book would be like. And I'm not disappointed. Backed!

The mood you have created, from the very start, is bewildering, mad, and the pace breathless. This book, from what I have read so far, is soaked is some really very, very funny (and at sometimes - rabid) satire.

Excellent work James. Look forward to reading more.

Martin.
(My House on the Fjord)

This is really enjoyable - great title and character names. Straight into the story; the chars. have been cleverly introduced, and the cooking theme works very well. On our shelf!

This is brilliant! Shelved right now!
Elaina

Having read the first few chapters, I'm absolutely delighted with your writing! You've woven a bright, colourful tapestry of characters cleverly and wittily. I'm definitely going to come back to read the rest of this!

I'm looking forward to reading this!

Over here on the recommendation of Patrick Barrett - he always picks the good ones and he didn't fail this time! I just love the title and cover pic. I might split the pitch into several paragraphs, break it up so it's easier to read (I was advised this about mine). I think you have a great set up and all the ingredients of a really good read. Your descriptions are brilliant, I can feel I am there with your characters. There are some truly laugh out loud moments ;-) This is well written, it is witty and fun. I wish you good luck and it's on my revolving shelf ;-)
Best wishes,
Annabelle
(Would love your thoughts on Adelaide if you can ;-))

Wonderful stuff...there were portions where I literally laughed (the Whitney Houston-Pope exchange, the family's conversation in chapter 2), mainly because the dialog feels real -- this is how people actually talk. I like the premise and the setting, and the characters with all their pretense and shortcomings -- through four chapters, I think this is a gem and plan on reading more. Nothing really to crit here at least from my vantage point, so onto the shelf for a while. Well done and thank you for the opportunity.

This is great and it handles the church which, as Dave Allen discovered, is a rich vein for comedy.
On my shelf, Patrick Barrett (Shakespeares Cuthbert)

James I have read more and am shelving this. Good luck.Bruce

James,
I have enjoyed reading the first couple of Chapters. Very amusing and rather typical of a small village in England. I spent my school days in such a village in Devon. The characters are quite real as well as funny. I will read more as time allows. Good luck with this. Watchlisted. Bruce

Loved the story - very contemporary, and real. You treat a very devisive subject with respect and dignity, allowing all to see the folly in our own biases. Wish I could read the part where Jesus "outs" himself to the church (sorry, I couldn't resist).
Would've enjoyed it even more had it move along at a bit brisker pace. I especially found some of the arguing, while humorous, was also a tad tedious for me. Tighten some of that up and this'll be first rate all the way.

It's original - making an omlet during a sermon - classic. I love the family's reaction to it in the following chapter - and with Jesus sitting in the back with no one noticing has me wanting to read chapter 3. And an strange choir. Just that this is odd and up my alley means it deserves a backing. I'll make room in a few minutes. Well done.

Hope when you have the time, you'll look at mine.

I just love this excerpt I read. This is top-notch writing and a very compelling story. SHELVED!
I only question the prologue. It's very well written of course and has many interesting details. I feel that you've included it for a reason so I won't question that since I haven't read the book. But do consider cutting it down drastically to get to that great punchline about Jesus being in town and "it had already started." The rest is mostly accolades:
1. given enough warning. Funny!
2. As hinted by its name, little. Funny!
3. Love that the motto was poorly printed
4. We go with the fact that the vicar knows not who puts this up because of the tone.
5. “seemed unwilling to penetrate the walls of the building itself.” To me, this line doesn’t work because we don’t expect light to penetrate walls. Perhaps the stain glass windows? That doesn’t quite work either. Hmmm
6. You’ve got a great wit! I love this stuff. There’s one joke about the apocalypse that is buried in my view. Consider cutting all of this “that was popular…nothing so dramatic” so the sentence would be “The scene might…in the 1970’s, except the most apocalyptic…1987.”
7. Do you need “by his standards?” Not sure.
8. Cookery sermons! Great!
9. “…a very fine omelet.” This is just priceless!
10. Dreadful wife. Funny.
11. “slightly Jewish look about him.” In another context this might be offensive but it says a lot about Sathan, doesn’t it. We sort of get that having a slightly Jewish look is perhaps a negative thing to her yet that’s Jesus!

If you can promise me that its going to be published in a shop where I can buy it (possibly as a bday present for my dad) I'll let you off with uploading the whole book...

Many thanks for all the comments - my agent has advised me to go easy on uploading the whole book but since there's interest and I'm a sucker for public pressure I've put up a few more chapters, and will add more next week.

Re. the prologue - I know a fair few people who like it, and I'm one of them. Also I have the benefit of having read to the end, where structurally the prologue's existence is - I reckon - entirely justified. But readers who don't want to have to struggle through a whole page of writing are very welcome to skip straight to chapter one...

Are we going to see more of this? I got my dad (minister) to read it and he thought it was funny too...he'd also like to see more

This is so funny, its great...and I liked the prologue

Hi James,
I like it. It's very amusing but please cut out the prologue. I stumbled across an article the other day that said something to the effect that publishers don't like prologues because they distract the reader and introduce parts of the plot that could be better placed elsewhere. Having read yours I see what they mean. It's full of great ideas (I especially like the mottos on the door) and it gives many interesting glimpses of the plot but I'd rather see them in the main story.

Once chapter 1 really started, however, I settled down for a good read.

Hi James
Saw your title and had to have a look. I agree with other comments that you need different voices for your characters and need to break up the blocks of writing with dialogue, or at least people's actual thoughts. If you had something like "What would Jesus think of ...." Sathan thought to herself, sniffing....The Prologue desn't do anything to hook the reader in - in fact, wading through all that stuff about science/religion and the sun is off-putting - a cardinal rule is to start your book with something happening - the more vivid the better.The cooking sermon is a good idea, I think, but all the 'tell' stuff about the Anglican faith slows everything down. We need to get inside the character's heads to care about them and read on. Just a few thoughts -

Frankie

Now this looks really Stephen Fry-ish or something like that. Excellent. You are on my watch list.

Hi James,

I read two chapters and must say how very clean and easy to read your writing is. Great stuff. I loved the pitch and think you have some very good ideas there. Jesus coming to church and being spied by the bigoted woman (whose unusual name I can't remember off the top of my head) was nice -- just the sort of thing I can imagine happening.

The cooking is a nice idea. Not sure the congregation would agree with me however...

One thing that gave me pause -- it seems that there was no individual voice for each of the point of view character sections. Phair 'sounded' like the vicar and the vicar's internal narrative sounded like the choir master's etc. I suggest you try and inject a little originality into their voices. For example, the bigoted woman might have a word she uses (in her thoughts) all the time when she feels contemptuous, like 'Pish', or something. Daft example, but I really do think you need to individualise each narrative.

Overall, amusing, this. Best of luck with it.

Thank you for sharing your work with us.

~Diane.