My dear sainted Mother like most of her generation made sure that Like Lady Bracknell every luxury that money could buy, including christening was lavished upon me. Unfortunately my early teen years via Robert G Ingersoll rather destroyed her efforts though not the human and social concerns that came with it. Part of that process involved the rejection of the late Victorian sickly sweet images that were part of the parcel and Tsiolkas has certainly injected a far more realistic sometimes savagely so set of images in this amazing book.
As a student of Ancient History at Uni, I became much more aware of the brutal nature of life in the times described overpoweringly here as well as the complex nature of the formation of the primitive Christian church, its personnel, internal conflicts, processes and emerging writ holy and otherwise.
More than anyone I have encountered, Tsiolkas drags us back into those issues and those times. He clearly has had similar experiences including a loving Greek Orthodox Mum, loss of faith and wresting with his sexual nature and coming out in that religious context to a 35 year relationship.
Thomas also offers interest across the canvas of these sections as a sometimes almost savage illuminator. Each can be seen as a drilling down into particular events, behaviours and meditations. There is, as well, the regularly quoted Folau and routinely mis-translated text we have all had to deal with.
Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. Let me quote from some recent Tsiolkias interviews to get his own perspective on what he has tried to do. And these are people I love, my family. What will they think of me if I challenge them and their beliefs?
