A good summary of the state of journalism

Lately I've been reading Tony Hendra's debut novel "The Messiah of Morris Avenue", a left-liberal account of the Second Coming of Christ. You can throw out any ideas you had about the Second Coming as detailed in the book of Revelation, the OT, or even Matthew 25, for Jesus returns as an Irish-Mexican living in the South Bronx of New York. His name: Jose Francisco Kennedy (JFK, get it?), who goes by the name "Jay", and pretty much lives and moves the same way as he did 2,000 years ago, accept now he aspouses some of the talking points of left-wing idealogues.

While there are some HUGE problems with Hendra's theology, there's enough good stuff in this novel to make it worth reading, even by those on the far right--perhaps especially those on the far right.

Here's a small passage from the book that shows some of the genius of Tony Hendra. Here Johnny Greco, a jaded journalist and narrator of the story, as well as being the 'Judas' to Jay's 'Jesus' begins to wonder what attracts him to 'Jay' and also gives us a quick but accurate summary of the state of journalism:

Why am I here? What has brought me to this very odd moment in my life? Exposing Jose Francisco is not in the cards; he's nobody, it's pointless. The only reason can be that I want to find him convincing, that I want--though obviously not in a religious way--to believe in him and then express that belief. Can I rise to this occasion? I'm not sure I can. I can't remember the last time, if there ever was a time, I wrote anything positive about anybody. It's never occured to me in a lifetime of pursuing the banalities of greed and deception that I might need to. Journalists like to pretend that tearing down and ruthlessly exposing is hard work, gritty, and demanding, requiring tenaciousness and countless hours of shoe leather, but what makes the time fly is that tearing down is fun. It's real easy. Whereas, whatever the opposite is, is fucking difficult.

Amen to that, brother.

For more about this book, click on this link to read the reviews at Amazon.com

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