The Messiah of Morris Avenue: A Novel

The acclaimed satirist and bestselling author of Father Joe poses the question, would we recognize the messiah if he appeared today? and delivers, in the words of Frank McCourt, "just what the country needs now--a good dose of merriment in the face of crawthumping righteousness."
In the not so distant future of Tony Hendra's novel, the tide of righteousness--in the form of executions, barking evangelists, tank-like SUVs, and a movie industry run entirely by the Christian right--has swept the nation. Aside from the non-white, the non-Christian, and the non-wealthy, all are believers. Among the skeptics is a washed-up journalist named Johnny Greco, who hears of a media-shy young man known as "Jay"roaming through ghettos, healing the sick, and tossing off miracles. Soft-spoken and shabbily dressed, Jay is an unlikely savior for this antsy and intolerant America. But as he makes his rounds, gathers followers, and makes furious enemies among the righteous powers that be, Johnny finds it harder and harder to doubt him.

Religion & Spirituality

Hendra, Tony

Christian Books & Bibles

Picador

A satiric look back at this decade covers politics, popular culture, technology, consumerism, sports, and social problems

The 90's: A Look Back

Literature & Fiction

Elbling, Peter

Humor & Satire

Avon/Books

Chronicles the history of "Boomer Humor," from its beginnings with Lenny Bruce and Jules Feiffer, through the sixties and the work of Richard Pryor and Woody Allen, to its contemporary expression in "Saturday Night Live"

Going Too Far

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

DOUBLEDAY

A parody of the wisdom of the ages presents a primer on being bad that offers poems, proverbs, classic tales, and irresponsible stories encouraging such behaviors as heedless hypocrisy, blatant laziness, unbridled lust, and flagrant disloyalty

The Book of Bad Virtues

Pocket

Pop images are combined to tell the story of a young man named Brad who wants to fall in love, live in New York, and be an artist

BRAD '61: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Pantheon

A satirical look at the life of President Bush offers tongue in cheek descriptions of his childhood, education, military career, presidency, and involvement in the Iran Contra Affair

Born to Run Things: An Utterly Unauthorized Biography of George Bush

Villard

The Messiah of Morris Avenue

Out to stick it to Reverend Sabbath, America's premier religious figure, failed journalist Johnny Greco announces that a young man named Jay, who has been preaching radical notions and performing miracles, is really the Second Coming.

United States

Thorndike Pr

From the bestselling author of Father Joe, a slyly comic, deeply spiritual novel that imagines the Second Coming--and an unlikely, lovably human new savior Tony Hendra's Father Joe became a new classic of faith and spirituality--even for those not usually inclined. Now Hendra is back with a novel set in a very reverent future where church and state walk hand in hand. Fade-in as Johnny Greco--a fallen journalist who nurses a few grudges along with his cocktails--stumbles onto the story of a young man named Jay who's driving around New Jersey preaching radical notions (kindness, generosity) and tossing off miracles. How better, Johnny schemes, to stick it to the Reverend Sabbath, America's #1 Holy Warrior, than to write a headline-making story announcing Jay as the Second Coming? Then something strange happens. Died-in-the-wool skeptic Johnny actually finds his own life being transformed by the new messiah. Alternately hilarious and genuinely moving, The Messiah of Morris Avenue brings to life a savior who reminds the world of what Jesus actually taught and wittily skewers all sorts of sanctimoniousness on both sides of the political spectrum. Writing with heart, a sharp eye, and a passionate frustration with those who feel they hold a monopoly on God, Tony Hendra has created a delightful entertainment that reminds us of the unfailing power of genuine faith.

Henry Holt and Co.

A key comic writer of the past three decades has created his most heartfelt and hard-hitting book. Father Joe is Tony Hendra’s inspiring true story of finding faith, friendship, and family through the decades-long influence of a surpassingly wise Benedictine monk named Father Joseph Warrillow. Like everything human, it started with sex. In 1955, fourteen-year-old Tony found himself entangled with a married Catholic woman. In Cold War England, where Catholicism was the subject of news stories and Graham Greene bestsellers, Tony was whisked off by the woman’s husband to see a priest and be saved. Yet what he found was a far cry from the priests he’d known at Catholic school, where boys were beaten with belts or set upon by dogs. Instead, he met Father Joe, a gentle, stammering, ungainly Benedictine who never used the words “wrong” or “guilt,” who believed that God was in everyone and that “the only sin was selfishness.” During the next forty years, as his life and career drastically ebbed and flowed, Tony discovered that his visits to Father Joe remained the one constant in his life—the relationship that, in the most serious sense, saved it. From the fifties and his adolescent desire to join an abbey himself; to the sixties, when attending Cambridge and seeing the satire of Beyond the Fringe convinced him to change the world with laughter, not prayer; to the seventies and successful stints as an original editor of National Lampoon and a writer of Lemmings, the off-Broadway smash that introduced John Belushi and Chevy Chase; to professional disaster after co-creating the legendary English series Spitting Image; from drinking to drugs, from a failed first marriage to a successful second and the miracle of parenthood—the years only deepened Tony’s need for the wisdom of his other and more real father, creating a bond that could not be broken, even by death. A startling departure for this acclaimed satirist, Father Joe is a sincere account of how Tony Hendra learned to love. It’s the story of a whole generation looking for a way back from mockery and irony, looking for its own Father Joe, and a testament to one of the most charismatic mentors in modern literature.

Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Random House Trade Paperbacks

Welcome to the first satirical book about the Internet! 
Every day, another cyber-visionary adds another sparkling spire to the fabulous Wired City of the Future: rooms that think, PCs that feel your pain, micro-electrical devices that warn you when youre about to be mugged An e-topia set in a sea of genetically modified money that grows ALL BY ITSELF without boring old profits or products! 
The analog world and its bricks-and-mortar dinosaurs have been swept away by a Silicon Tsunami! The Wired have crushed the Tired! And with them they have brought an outlandish tribal language only THEY can understand! 
Do you REALLY know what URL and XML mean? Or the origin of sinister terms like drop-and-drag end-user fat media and worst of all, up-time? Have you any idea why something is through-put instead of put-through? 
Of course you dont!!! At best, YOURE FAKING IT! 
You need to know the REAL MEANING of terms that RIGHT NOW are making thousands of people with bad skin and all-black wardrobes into billionaires. 
You need The GIGAWIT Dictionary of the E-nglish Language. 
YOU may be a GIGAWIT! Find out by submitting your own E-nglish terms and definitions to us. If in the arbitrary and capricious judgment of the editors, its funny enough, boom! youre in the next edition of the GIGAWIT Dictionary, Youll be a published author AND youll get paid!

The GIGAWIT Dictionary of the E-nglish Language

Computers & Technology

Gigawit

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hendra, Tony. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hendra, Tony

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hendra, Tony. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Messiah of Morris Avenue: A Novel

The 90's: A Look Back

Going Too Far

The Book of Bad Virtues

BRAD '61: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Born to Run Things: An Utterly Unauthorized Biography of George Bush

The Messiah of Morris Avenue

The Messiah of Morris Avenue: A Novel

Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul

The GIGAWIT Dictionary of the E-nglish Language