Review: The Gospel According to Wanda B. Lazarus by Lynn Joffe

This is a review of the best book you probably won't be able to get your hands on unless you live in South Africa. 

 I'm going to abbreviate the title as Gospel within this review.

Reaction: Loved it. I've read many books lately that I've really enjoyed but none have provided the sheer exuberant fun of The Gospel According to Wanda B. Lazarus by Lynn Joffe. It is a crime against readers that it isn't widely available and I hope an international publisher picks it up soon.

Synopsis: Our hero, Wanda, is an independent-minded young Jewish girl not fond of the status of women. Our story picks up begins in 33 CE where a series of misadventures finds our titular protagonist's passion for music — a major theme in the book — fired by a Roman lover and inadvertently offending Jesus who tells her she will remain on earth until he returns. To be fair to Wanda, her actions toward Jesus were well intentioned.

After the death of her lover, Wanda overdoses herself on nard (spikenard/muskroot).  Instead of eternal death she finds herself in the realm of the nine muses which she learned about from her lover. The muses don't come across as very imposing (more on this later).  She declares that she wants to join them as the tenth muse. Wanda is pretty insistent and the muses decided to get rid of her by giving her a task, delivered in the form of a cryptic poem, that she has to accomplish to be considered for acceptance as a muse.

Her death launches Wanda into the first of her reincarnations that will take her around the world from Palmyra in 272 CE to Norway in 2020 CE. Each time she dies and returns to the muses, she is told that she fell short in the successful completion of her task and is sent off again with another 'what does this even mean' poem to figure out.

What I Liked: Lynn is a master story teller with a wonderful way of imagining events and brings a good dose of humor to the story. I am astonished at what she was able to pack into this book. Nothing is forced, padded, or an infodump. Wanda is the perfect character to react to historical events throughout history. She's funny, resilient, randy, bawdy (also vulgar and raunchy), sexy, and an assertive feminist. On the first page Wanda says about the events in 33 CE, The disciples remember it differently, but they were always going to write their own version anyway. I was there. I saw it all. This is pretty much what happens through all Wanda's incarnations; history is written and her role is left out. Wanda's feminism also asserts itself in each reincarnation.

Let's mention something about the muses first. They are a hoot and not what you would imagine from Greek mythology. They are squabbling — and a little flaky —sisters with a somewhat dysfunctional family dynamic. Their big brother Apollo calls the hots and isn't above forbidding them to exercise their talents. This is a situations that offends Wanda who has no patience for the patriarchy. I think she'd lead a Lucifer style revolt against the heavens if she could. It's fun the way Lynn gives personalities to each muse based on the areas over which each has influence.

Wanda is telling the story of her past lives and she does so with a liberal use of Yiddish, word play, puns, and putting modern vernacular in the mouths of historical figures. I mentioned above that Wanda is a bit vulgar and the way she uses apricots, peaches, and pomegranates for body parts will forever color the way I see those fruits.

This isn't a criticism, but I found I needed to look up a lot of words and historical events. Ok, I looked up some things but rolled with the context for most of the book otherwise I'd have had to stop every few minutes for a web search. This was in no way an impediment to the fun I had reading this book. I mean, I learned the word to describe the hairs standing on your body — horripilate — and a lot about stringed instruments such as the phorminx. There is a lot of music theory that mostly went over my head. But music is fundamental to Wanda's character and is a necessary part of the story. 

Gospel calls out for a reread not only for the story but to look deeper into the language and historical events.

Speaking of history, Lynn deftly inserts Wanda into historical events where she steers the outcome but, naturally, without any credit. I think my favorite incarnation was when Wanda found herself in Petrograd in 1916 with Rasputin. Perhaps that was because I knew more about that part of history but probably because of the really neat twist the author puts on it.

The Gospel According to Wanda B. Lazarus is an expansive and epic journey—and romp— through history with one of the most enjoyable characters I've encountered in a while. Highly recommended and Lynn is firmly on my 'can't wait for her next book'

Keywords: Greek Muses, reincarnation, feminism, history, music