The Fire Gospel (Myths) - Hardcover

The most enjoyable novel I've read all year. * * Independent on Sunday on 'Crimson Petal' * * Irresistibly readable. * * Sunday Times on 'Crimson Petal' * * An intensely imaginative time-travel experience. * * Independent on 'Crimson Petal' * * A real triumph. This is a man who would give Conrad a run at writing the perfect sentence. * * Guardian on 'Under the Skin' * * Faber's writing is chaste, dryly humorous and resolutely moral ... A remarkable novel. * * New York Times on 'Under the Skin' * * A pacy book-world satire. -- Naomi West * * Harper's Bazaar * * Sharply satirical. -- Tom Gatti * * The Times * * The Fire Gospel is an entertaining story, with a vein of playful symbolism running throughout . . . a provocative little volume with a strong element of knowing humour. -- Henry Hitchings * * Financial Times * * Faber is flexing his literary and academic muscles here, but covering everything in easy to digest, page-turning and often very funny prose. ... Definitely proof that one of our most entertaining and original authors has risen again. -- Claire Sawers * * The List * * Startling. ...What he did for the Victorian novel in The Crimson Petal and the White - rethinking and recasting it - Faber now does for the best-selling books du jour. The Da Vinci Code with gags - and bile. -- Ian Sansom * * Guardian * * A lean, controlled, instantly engrossing book. -- Lisa Mullen * * Time Out * *

Theo Griepenkerl is a modest academic with an Olympian ego. When he visits a looted museum in Iraq, looking for treasures he can ship back to Canada, he finds nine papyrus scrolls that have lain hidden for two thousand years. Once translated from Aramaic, these prove to be a fifth Gospel, written by an eye-witness of Jesus Christ's last days. But when Theo decides to share this sensational discovery with the world, he fails to imagine the impact the new Gospel will have on Christians, Arabs, homicidal maniacs and Amazon customers. Like Prometheus's gift of fire, it has incendiary consequences. The Fire Gospel is an enthralling novel about the power of words to resonate across centuries, and inspire and disrupt in equal measure. Wickedly provocative, hilarious and shocking by turns, it is a revelatory piece of storytelling.