What if Jesus had married? What would his life would have been like during the years before his ministry? What would his wife been like? In this novel, Ana, his fictional wife is a feminist writer. Her longing to express herself is supported by Jesus. She writes about the matriarchs of the bible, as well as many other codex.
The imagining of a wife for Jesus may seem a sacrilege to some, but the author is never sacrligious. It an interesting imagining of a possibility that I fell, should not be ruled out. ( )

A couple of friends recommended this book, so it went on my list. When I read the premise, I tensed up a little, because the treatment of “Jesus: the Lost Years” has the potential to be dicey. I am a Christian, so this is of course a sacred topic (in general and for me personally). But I’ve also read Lamb by Christopher Moore and enjoyed it despite the irreverence, so… y’know, it could go either way.

I really did enjoy the story. The narrative provides what seems to be a historically accurate representation of daily life during the era of Christ, both the beautiful and the horrific.

It is hard to look objectively at this book as a work of fiction only and not to draw comparisons to scripture, since there are several pieces that align. I won’t get into the touchy discussion of “if Jesus had a wife, she would have done/been/said X, Y, and Z” because that’s just asking for trouble. I will instead encourage you to read it yourself and try to separate it from any prior knowledge or beliefs you may hold, in order to get the most enjoyment out of the story as just that—a story. ( )

When I complete the physical act of reading a book that I am not ready to mentally shut the cover on, I usually allow it to continue to simmer and bubble up in my thoughts for a period of time. A few hours, a day, sometimes longer. When that happens, I wait to start reading my next book. The Book of Longings has been simmering in me since I finished yesterday afternoon, and it is not finished. If I were not facing another week of long working hours, I would have let it simmer longer — caramelize — before I wrote a review.

The story is narrated by Ana, future, present, and widowed wife of Jesus, son of Joseph of Nazareth. As with all good historical fiction, the story is plausible because embroidered into the details are the familiar events of the New Testament stories, but also because it offers a plausible scenario in which she would not have appeared in the writings of the Apostles. Because of that latter element, I did not have to suspend disbelief to become immersed in Ana’s story, which I sometimes struggle with in a lesser work of historical fiction.

No spoilers here; just my general observations on the fine writing and compelling story. Ana certainly became a voice in my world in Sue Monk Kidd’s well-told tale. ( )

Sue Monk Kidd is not the first novelist to take a run at Jesus-as-mortal-man (Frank Yerby’s Judas, My Brother from 1968 comes to mind) – nor is she the first to theorize a married Jesus (Mary Magdalene frequently crops up on the candidate shortlist for that honor). But she may be the first to utilize the apocryphal spouse as the main character.

And what a character she is – Ana, the daughter of a prominent Jewish household in Galilee, is determined that her voice will be heard and that the stories of the women in her world will be told. This independence of spirit inevitably leads to strife within the family, and sets her on the path that will lead her to marriage with a gentle laborer from Nazareth.

Kidd attempts to paint Jesus as utterly human, and does a generally good job of it. There is very little Messianic spirit here, and no claim to divinity – just a bone-deep, ever-growing conviction that God has a specific journey in mind for him, and when it requires that he leave his family to prepare for and eventually preach, Ana is again left largely to her own devices among the company of women.

How she survives, how she builds the life she must have within the culture and society of the era, forms the backbone of the book. There are moments in the novel when the Jesus-factor simply feels tacked on as a heck of a good promotional hook, and the most it really does is to give portions of the story an inevitable forward momentum.

Kidd does a superb job here of re-creating the sights and sounds and smells of life in a land under Roman rule at the beginning of the Common Era, but frankly, she has written better books. ( )

I enjoyed reading this book, which I picked for my upcoming book club meeting. ( )