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The Autobiography of God: A Novel

3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 · rating details · 111 ratings · 30 reviews

Rebecca Nachman is a Rabbi without a synagogue. Having resigned from her dwindling congregation, she now works as a college counselor at a small Vermont college advising students about private matters and offering the "Jewish perspective" on issues raised at faculty dinner parties.

Deeply lonely and on the edge of losing her faith, she comes into possession of a Torah, the...more

Paperback, 256 pages

Published December 27th 2005 by St. Martin's Griffin (first published 2004)

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Sep 15, 2008 Snarky's rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: anges-faves, edgycrazycool, pomo-classics, this-was-recommended-to-me

Rebecca is going through some thangs. I can relate having fled some thangs and ended up--like Rebecca-in Vermont. This book is both incredibly humorous (in the way I enjoy) and dark (in the way I enjoy). Lester is working through his Jewish identity here via Rebecca and I love reading his thoughts about God and pretty much everything else. I think the prose is outstanding. (and I don't know that I've said that about a book recently. I'm guessing I haven't.)

Julius Lester is who Ishmael Reed think...more

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Jan 08, 2011 Hester rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-writers, holocaust, judaism-and-jewish-issues, magic-realism, novels, non-genre-fiction, religion

So deep and so dense. This book, with its profound questioning and occasional flights of fancy, is an intensely Jewish novel. That may seem obvious, seeing as it is about a rabbi, but it has so many Jewish characteristics. Firstly, it questions the status quo. Secondly, characters have more than one opinion. The Rosh Yeshiva is proud he trained a woman rabbi, but he doesn't believe in women rabbis. Thirdly, all the characters, including God, are spiritually flawed. The characters who hate and hu...more So deep and so dense. This book, with its profound questioning and occasional flights of fancy, is an intensely Jewish novel. That may seem obvious, seeing as it is about a rabbi, but it has so many Jewish characteristics. Firstly, it questions the status quo. Secondly, characters have more than one opinion. The Rosh Yeshiva is proud he trained a woman rabbi, but he doesn't believe in women rabbis. Thirdly, all the characters, including God, are spiritually flawed. The characters who hate and hurt others have redeeming qualities.

There is an appreciation for making every day experiences beautiful, not just through Rebecca's actions, but on a meta level, through Lester's prose. At the same time, Lester warns people not to be seduced by the beautiful. One can enjoy food, but Patric's relationship to quail at the expense is unhealthy. One can enjoy a woman's beauty, but one is not to objectify her with lust, as characters did to Allison and Rebbecca.

Jewish characters feel renewed by finding Jews in unexpected places(the scene with William Fein and Chai mountain is so sweet), and the main character is humbled by the realization that she needs to appreciate the gentiles around her. Her reaction to hearing Devora talk about Allison is heartbreaking. I did, however, find the description of Allison odd. I do not think I have ever met a woman who, against her will, drove all the men around her mad with desire. I live, however, in a community of very gentle men, who do not understand the type of obsession that drives the plot in this book.

One of the ideas that resonated with me is how important wounds are. Rebecca tells Evan to let his wound be his teacher. We see how Rebecca allowed her wound to teach her; she never limps on the inside, which protects her from Allison's fate. Her wound still teaches her throughout the novel, thirty years after it was inflicted. She learns that she needs to share her wound, and not use it to keep people out. I loved the brief story of how Brian Moon's wound helped him help so many others. Lester's vision of the best of humanity is of the walking wounded, who manage to face their hurt every day without self pity and use it to empathize with those around them.

The one way I found the book not so Jewish is its emphasis on mourning and death. Jews are forbidden to mourn excessively. One of our principles is "Choose Life." If someone dies at a wedding, you hide the body so the bride and groom will not be disturbed, and you ignore the death until after the wedding. Rebbecca, like so many children of Holocaust survivors, cannot choose life.

The book both rejects and accepts the idea of a Judeo-Christian tradition. When I was reading the reviews on Goodreads, I noticed that some people thought that the story devolved when Allison's plot was introduced. That is not a Jewish attitude. Rebbecca knew all about holiness, but in spite of her success as a therapist, she did not really know how to relate to people. She didn't understand that small talk is important. She didn't know how to hear Allison's cry for help. In the end, she is tried and tested. She needs to understand how important her fellow man is, and once she is confronted with God's humanity, she passes. It is a very Jewish idea to say that one person is equal to all of creation. Rebbecca had distanced herself from humanity and needed to understand that truth.

I loved Lester's vision of God as someone both wonderful and terrible. Rebecca's, and our, painful job is to learn to love God while condemning evil. We face the hard task of forgiving and comforting and holding ourselves to a higher standard. I am not sure I understand the book's last paragraph, but I found it beautiful. (less)

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Sep 18, 2010 Leslie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes a book written as fiction plunges bravely to the heart and depth of the hardest and most complicated philosophical and theological issues. This slender volume explores the themes of faith and evil through the story of a young woman rabbi who is struggling with loneliness and a crisis of faith. When she comes into possession of a special Torah, her life is changed radically, and she must face the truth, about herself and about God.

The quietly mystical search that Rebecca experiences in...more

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Sep 16, 2008 Shira rated it 4 of 5 stars

In Introduction to Jewish Philosophy with Rabbi Neil Gillman at JTS, I was taught that God can be any two of these three things: omniscient, omnipotent, and/or omnibenevolent. Provocatively, Julius Lester goes with the first two. His God is NOT all-good. The story juxtaposes an orthodox-raised-women-come-Reform-rabbi's unconventional life with that of God's emotional development (for lack of a better term.) I found this book fascinating.

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Apr 01, 2010 Tiffini Johnson rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book disturbed me.

It has some philosophically interesting and, granted, insightful moments. On nearly every page is at least one sentence worth contemplating. I have no doubt of Lester's intelligence, particularly where the Jewish faith is concerned. The very last scene of the book (which I only managed to get to with the help of my very stubborn open-mindedness) is touching. I even kind of liked the way the ghosts come about, and I can handle the direct communication with God (I loved "Th...more This book disturbed me.

It has some philosophically interesting and, granted, insightful moments. On nearly every page is at least one sentence worth contemplating. I have no doubt of Lester's intelligence, particularly where the Jewish faith is concerned. The very last scene of the book (which I only managed to get to with the help of my very stubborn open-mindedness) is touching. I even kind of liked the way the ghosts come about, and I can handle the direct communication with God (I loved "The Shack" for instance). Having studied Judaism and the Holocaust in great detail (I attended synagogue every weekend for a prolonged period of time and I have written books on the Holocaust), I can also confidently say that the Jewish religion, and even, in the main character Rebecca, the strength of the observant Jew are both accurately portrayed. However, I think the book was more about the so-called "redemption" of an internally cynical and angry ex-rabbi than it was anything else.

Those are its good points.

I have three complaints, one of which is minor, the other two the source of great concern.

First, much of the book, particularly in the first few chapters, are written in very long sentences, which makes it difficult to follow and read. This can, however, be overlooked (it may even be deliberate on Lester's part since this grammatical error seems to correct itself in teh middle and end of the book).

What can *not* be overlooked is

(1) God is presented as having an evil side. He smokes and He appears in the form of a truly evil man. God's "auto-biography" also directly contradicts Genesis, a text that appears in both the Torah and the Bible. He doesn't acknowledge that, in giving people free will, God also gave Satan the power to influence the actions of people: instead, God seems to alternate between BEING Satan and being God. This angered me. The evil things that happen in the world are attributed to God, not Satan.

(2) Rebecca is praised and seen as being more human, more understanding, than most preachers and/or rabbis because of her belief that God is not all good. This comforts and wins her the admiration of people who are hurting. However, at the same time, the preachers and rabbis who believe in an all-good God who only seeks the good of His children (despite the evil-ness that may be a part of it) are seen as patronizing. I understand what Lester was trying to say: that being angry at God is okay. This is a truth that should be spoken; I am okay with this basic concept. However, he takes a truth and contorts it. Being angry is one thing, implying that no or only superficial comfort can be gained from seeing God as an all-merciful, all-knowing, all-GOOD God is unfair, untruthful and needlessly cruel. The same preachers, and their messages of "God's will", have indeed comforted millions. Anger should not be repressed, scripture teaches us to question God becomes it brings us closer to Him and being angry is ok; denying the truth of the entire scriptures, that God is good and that he loves us and would never seek to intentionally cause us pain, is NOT.

In short, the book has some measure of value (thus, it receives two stars). However, its value can be found in other, more scriptural-based material. (less)

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Mar 24, 2009 Riah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those struggling with God or seeking spirituality

Recommended to Riah by: Pima County Library

Shelves: spirituality, fiction

I started reading this book on Sunday night. I completed it today in a 190-page reading frenzy. It is rare that I connect with a books on a spiritual level, and this one rivaled great writers such as C.S. Lewis -- perhaps not in prose or style, but certainly in overall theme, and human connectivity. Although I know little about Judaism, I believe that the quest for connection is universal among religions, and therefore, this book can be appreciated by anyone interested in understanding spiritual...more

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Aug 05, 2009 Marvin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion

Another peculiar book. The title is rather misleading; it's nothing like The Life of God, As Told by Himself, by Franco Ferucci, which I read several years ago & enjoyed. Rather, this is the story of a failed female rabbi who becomes a therapist for a small college in an isolated community in Vermont, where she helps others (and herself) come to terms with the evil in their midst. She is helped at one point, briefly, by her discovery of a very short autobiography God has written to share spe...more

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Nov 12, 2011 Kris Irvin rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: No one. Ever.

Shelves: 2011, bad-books

Seeing all the five star reviews makes me nervous. Did I miss something huge in this book? I will probably never know, because I am never, ever going to suffer through all 245 pages ever again.

This story is BAD. It starts off slow and it ends slow. There is no real action until about page 200. I kind of felt this book was totally misleading. The synopsis on the back says it's about a Rabbi who is visited by the ghosts of a village decimated in the Holocaust. This is not true. It's about a Rabbi...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Erica rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, theology

This was fabulous on so many levels! A rabbi not quite cut out for congregational life works as a therapist at a small college in Vermont. Personally, she has quite a few issues with God which are wonderfully compelling. The campus ends up having to deal with several deaths -- a major point in the plot, of course. It is all handled so well... almost chilling the extent to which I was brought back to all too many situations I have encountered on campus.

I did almost laugh out loud at one point. Do...more

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May 16, 2013 Liz rated it 3 of 5 stars

I gave this three stars because it pulled out the stops in the last quarter, but this is a very confused novel. It doesn't know if it wants to be an educational text about Judaism, a murder mystery, or some kind of weird redemption story. In the right hands it might have been all three, but Lester just can't find a seamless joint to meld them. On top of this, I found his writing pretty lifeless and his protagonist without soul, mostly because he's trying so hard to make her nothing BUT a raw ner...more

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Jun 08, 2012 Marion rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fun, interesting, unusual and moving! Creatively wierd and deep all at the same time. Surviving the "wierd" characterization of "God" is worth the effort of reading it to discover the spiritual and human depths this book offers. Author/poet, Maya Angelou, pays highest tribute to this author, Julius Lester. I WILL read the one Maya recommends so highly, "DO Lord Remember Me".

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Feb 12, 2011 Amanda added it

Shelves: abandoned, pretentious, adult

I use the "100 rule" for when you're allowed to give up on a book. Getting to page 76 of this one was a real struggle. Rebecca is an intolerable protagonist, endlessly self-pitying, cynical, and morose. The prose is bloated. Sentences go on for centuries.

I really like Julius Lester, and the plot sounded interesting, but I'm taking a pass on the rest of this one. Life is too short.

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Jan 06, 2011 Andrea rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fascinating twist on the concept of God told through the eyes of an young Jewish Rabbi, written by Irving Lester, an African American convert to Judaism. Lots of surprises and much food for thought. I will have to read it again because I was mostly too stunned to think deeply about the conceptual rendering of what God could really be.

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Apr 05, 2012 David Nadolny rated it 5 of 5 stars

Almost done with this one and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. It has taken twists and turns that I certainly didn't expect.

I am almost offended by the use of Hitler as the image God takes. I say almost as I am not jewish and am unsure how some of my Jewish friends would react to the way it is used in this book. I'm gonna survey some of them.

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Aug 16, 2009 Debra rated it 3 of 5 stars

Interesting book and quick read. Rabbi who is daughter of Holocaust survivors trying to reconcile belief in God with the existence of evil in the world...difficult subject presented originally. I was bothered by the plotline of campus romance gone bad.....just a little too dumb and trite for what else was in the story.

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Jul 11, 2011 Gwen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Quite intriguing in it's concept and not the type of book I usually pick up. God shows up and visits with a female Rabbi who sees herself as failure and is angry at God. What if old spirits were like they were still alive? Can God be evil?

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Oct 27, 2012 Dawn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Provocative. Gets one thinking about the big questions. Gets one to envision God in a different image. Gets one thinking about good and evil. And about God's will and God as a human construct.

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Jun 03, 2011 Kathy rated it 2 of 5 stars

I found this book to be very unpleasant. I didn't relate to the main character and found her voice whiny and full of self pity. It put me in a state of constant irritation.

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Jul 31, 2011 Katherine rated it 5 of 5 stars

i enjoyed this book. The imagery was wonderful, especially the importance of silence. Similar to "The Shack", the imagery of God is thought provoking and mix that all with a really good mystery. It's a very good read.

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Sep 21, 2009 Stephanie Curran rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this several years ago from the library. I decided I want to read it again. It was packed with interesting questions for discussion.

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Aug 02, 2009 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

a female rabbi at a Vermont college talks to God. Very good!

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Oct 18, 2009 Eve rated it 2 of 5 stars

eh, definitely not my cup of tea. I'm not a spiritual seeker and in any case God as Hitler to explain the nature of evil in the world doesn't do it for me . . .

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Mar 26, 2010 Katherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a most unusual book. It was hard to get into but once I did it was totally absorbing. The heroine is a therapist ex-Orthodox Jewish Rabbi who is visited by spirits as well as by God who leaves his autobiography. Very different, and in many ways refreshing view of God which incorporates the evil side. Riah - I'd love to talk to you about this book sometime. Cynthia - it's worth pursuing it.

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May 19, 2009 Kiri rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 10, 2010 Cynthia marked it as to-read

Shelves: abandoned

I reada bout 50 pages of this book and could not go back. Maybe later. I di not find it appealing.

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Jan 28, 2008 Neelz rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed-from-a-friend

It's hard to describe the book, except to say that it sets up quite the premise (lapsed observant Reform rabbi hears the voices of dead Jews and then reads God's autobiography) and succeeds in delivering the goods.

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Feb 14, 2013 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Provocative title and provocative stories. Don't want to give anything away, but if you have a concept of a supreme being, this book will challenge traditional beliefs.

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Jan 23, 2013 KG rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Even though this is fiction, the author gave me some ideas to ponder. I enjoyed it very much.

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Aug 06, 2007 Callie Souther rated it 5 of 5 stars

Thought provoking, disturbing, and all with a great narrative.

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May 11, 2007 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: on-my-bookshelf-at-home

Another interesting read from Professor Lester. He's awesome.

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About Julius Lester

I was born on January 27, 1939 in St. Louis, Missouri. From 1941-1954 I lived in Kansas City, Kansas, and from 1954-1961 in Nashville, Tennesse. I received a B.A. in English from Fisk University in 1960.

In 1961 I moved to New York City where I had a talk radio show on WBAI FM from 1966-1973, hosted a television talk show on WNET from 1969-1971.

Since 1968 I have published 43 books. Among the awards...more I was born on January 27, 1939 in St. Louis, Missouri. From 1941-1954 I lived in Kansas City, Kansas, and from 1954-1961 in Nashville, Tennesse. I received a B.A. in English from Fisk University in 1960.

In 1961 I moved to New York City where I had a talk radio show on WBAI FM from 1966-1973, hosted a television talk show on WNET from 1969-1971.

Since 1968 I have published 43 books. Among the awards these books have received are the Newberry Honor Medal, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, National Book Award Finalist, National Jewish Book Award Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award, Coretta Scott King Award. Numerous titles have also appeared on the New York Times Outstanding Book list and American Library Association Notable Book list.

I've also published over 200 hundred essays and reviews in such publications as the New York Times Booko Review, New York Times Op-Ed Page, Boston Globe, Village Voice, The New Republic, Forward, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

I've recorded two albums of original songs, which are available on iTunes. During the civil rights movement I was a photographer and my photographs from that time were included in an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution and are part of the permanent collection at Howard University. I've also had photographs in group shows at Pivot Media, Florence, Mass., Valley Photographers, Springfield, Mass., State House, Boston, Mass., as well as solo shows at the University of Massachusetts, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass., & Valley Photo Center.

After teaching for two years at the New School for Social Research in New York (1968-70), I joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts in 1971 where I was a professor in the Judaic and Near Eastern Studies Department, and adjunct professor of History.
I have been honored with all three of the university's most prestigious faculty awards: The Distinguished Teacher's Award, the Faculty Fellowship Award for Distinguished Research and Scholarship, and the Chancellor's Medal, the university's highest honor. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education selected me as the Massachusetts State Professor of the Year in 1988. I retired from the university at the end of 2003. For ten years I served as lay religious leader of Beth El Synagogue in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

I have five children - 2 male, 3 female - who range in age from 28 to 43. I live with my wife and two cats on a secluded twelve acres in a small town in western Massachusetts.

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“How can I love you if I don't know what hurts you?” — 72 people liked it

“Silence was not the absence of sound but was itself a sound that could be loud or soft, soothing or disturbing, complex or simple.” — 21 people liked it

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