Anne Rice's newest novel follows Jesus to Cana "Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana," by Anne Rice

As with her first novel about Christ, Anne Rice has used careful research and scholarship to re-create the first century world of Yeshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) in "Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana."

This novel begins not long before Jesus' first miracle, the changing of water into wine at a wedding celebration, and, indeed, the wedding in this narrative is more significant for Jesus than we might have imagined.

Like many sequels, this book might not captivate the reader to the extent that the first installment -- "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" -- did. But the reason is probably not that the novel is less meticulously researched and written than the first, but that the first book intrigued readers at least in part because of the author herself.

The explanation, in an afterword, of Rice's return to the Catholic faith after about 40 years of atheism, a time during which she wrote a number of popular vampire novels, made the first "Christ the Lord" book all the more compelling. This time readers know the personal context, so the joy and mystery of Rice's faith are more subdued.

Still, this book has much to lure the reader into mind-stretching thoughts about the Lord. As she did with the first book, Rice portrays Jesus as a human being, albeit divine as well. Actually this book, more than the first, suggests her vision of him as a man.

Jesus himself narrates the text, as he did in the first book, and he acknowledges his divine-human perspective: "What I must know, I know. And what I must learn, I learn."

He recalls that Satan tempted him to "stop time," but he says he "did not come to stop it. ... I came to live it, to surrender to it, to endure it, to discover in it what it was I must do." He fully accepts his temporary role of living in time rather than in eternity even though, as he says, "I'd always known who I really was. I was God." Later in the book he reiterates that he is a man, with human masculine desires and temptations.

Unlike the boy Jesus in "Out of Egypt," this Jesus is not a child seeking to understand himself but a man who, while not knowing the details of his future, does understand that he is the promised Messiah. Some of his family members have a little more difficulty with the concept.

"Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" was published in 2005 and "Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana" in 2008, so perhaps 2011 will see "Christ the Lord: The Road to Calvary" or some such title. These books are worth the wait.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops