Jesus and John
Lethe Press
2020
A Weird reimagining of the New Testament as a novel of allegorical horror. John, a fisherman from the rural village of Bethsaida in Galilee, is tasked with protecting the risen body of Yeshua, who was crucified at Golgotha for disrupting Roman order in the city of Jerusalem. The body, having miraculously emerged from its cave-like tomb, refuses to speak and walks in a dream-like silence, eventually leading John on a dangerous pilgrimage to a mysterious mansion in Rome known as the Gray Palace. There, the few inhabitants promise a celebration that may be a sacrifice John is unwilling to make.
Incorporating Christian Gnosticism, Pagan dreams, and a contemporary will toward queer disruption, Adam McOmber tells a powerful story of devotion.
"Terror and religion collide in McOmber's atmospheric, thought-provoking, and unapologetically queer exploration of devotion in a retelling of the resurrection as a horror allegory."
Becky Spratford, Booklist
"McOmber reimagines the resurrection of Jesus as an eerie, dreamlike zombie story in this chilling work… McOmber excels at crafting chilling revelations that are genuinely surprising even within this strange, hypnotic world."
Publishers Weekly
"Beautifully written, heretical, and profoundly humane, this is a book about destabilizing one's entire sense of reality and revealing the unreal lurking within."
Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
