Nazareth, North Dakota
by Tommy Zurhellen
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Pub Date Apr 15 2011 | Archive Date Jan 31 2014
Description
Tommy Zurhellen's incandescent debut is an authentic religious allegory connecting Lakota history with scripture. It contains plot twists and undeniable truths as deep and wide as the Little Missouri River, with ideas and messages so big, so earthshaking, so unmistakably divine, they do more than transform the little town of Nazareth. They change the world.
Praise for Nazareth, North Dakota
“[T]his debut novel reveals the hardscrabble life of normal, unguided people who put their last dollars in the juke box and don’t worry about what will happen when the song ends…Zurhellen’s masterful dialogue often makes for gripping scenes that sustain these characters for decades.”
-Publisher’s Weekly
“More than just a clever reimagining of the New Testament, Nazareth, North Dakota is an epic tale in its own right…[Zurhellen] demonstrates that while it may be true that there is nothing new under the sun, there’s a good mix of enjoyment and insight to be found in recycling the old.”
-New York Journal of Books
“[O]ne heck of a tale that’s as much about the complexity of living in the modern world as it is about reinventing the icons of Christian tradition…an excellent book from a promising new voice in literature.”
-Small Press Reviews
“Tommy Zurhellen’s Nazareth transports us to a North Dakota unlike any we’ve encountered on I-94: abandoned infants, escaped elephants, and a cast of characters whose misadventures reach proportions downright Biblical. Don’t miss this writer’s ambitious debut.”
-Wendy Rawlings, author of The Agnostics and Come Back Irish
“This is a large-hearted book about the everpresent fundamental human verities written with empathy, force, and verve.”
-Ron Carlson, author of Five Skies and The Signal
“In Nazareth, North Dakota, Tommy Zurhellen performs miraculous midwifery, birthing a magical transubstantiation of stories into novel, a mash-up of modernized mythologies with sheer mythic modernity…Simply epiphanic!”
-Michael Martone, author of Doublewide and The Blue Guide to Indiana
Richly imagined and so very poignant this novel Nazareth, North Dakota. Its characters are indignant and foolish and hopeful and grasping-for-life…something special.”
-Robert Olmstead, author of Coal Black Horse and Far Bright Star
Advance Praise
In Nazareth, North Dakota, debut novelist Tommy Zurhellen lovingly reimagines the New Testament as a series of interlocking tales set in the northernmost regions of the American heartland. While the narrative may, on the surface, seem familiar to many, Mr. Zurhellen’s take on the second coming owes as much to contemporary authors like Neil Gaiman and Chuck Palahniuk as it does to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The novel opens with a recovering alcoholic named Roxy doing her best and failing to make amends with her hapless husband, Dill. Diving headlong into an over-chlorinated motel swimming pool, Dill blinds himself just in time to bear witness not only to the dissolution of his marriage but to Roxy’s discovery of an abandoned baby on her doorstep. The child, whom Roxy names Sam, turns out to be the Messiah, and what follows is a series of adventures in which oversexed teens, crooked cops, and a host of small-town saints and sinners stand in for various icons of the New Testament.
What marks Mr. Zurhellen as a master storyteller is not his penchant for analogy. Yes, he does a fine job of populating his world with more or less fitting contemporary versions of the Holy Family, John the Baptist, King Herod, Lazarus, and even Salome (cleverly rechristened Sally Mae in this iteration of the so-called greatest story ever told). Mr. Zurhellen, however, has the good sense to play with the archetypes set forth in scripture and, in so doing, breathe new life into what could, in the hands of a lesser writer, turn into a banal if mildly amusing rehash.
Among the especially compelling narrative strands in Nazareth, North Dakota are those told from the perspectives of the Bible’s minor characters. Lazarus, for example, takes the form of an ex-con who turns to dealing illegal drugs to cover his medical expenses while King Herod, reincarnated as a “pot-bellied backwater sheriff with no friends and only a hollow shell for a family,” comes off as a sad buffoon struggling to crawl out from under the shadow of an overbearing father.
More than just a clever reimagining of the New Testament, Nazareth, North Dakotais an epic tale in its own right. Employing a wide range of narrative voices, Mr. Zurhellen offers a new twist on Christian mythology and, in so doing, demonstrates that while it may be true that there is nothing new under the sun, there’s a good mix of enjoyment and insight to be found in recycling the old.
Reviewer Marc Schuster’s most recent book is the novel, The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl. He is Associate Fiction Editor at Philadelphia Storiesmagazine and a college educator specializing in American literature and composition. Reviewed in The New York Journal of Books.Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9780984510566 |
| PRICE | 14.95 |
| PAGES | 212 |
