Book Review #8 – “The Road to Cana” by Anne Rice (this post is in process and incomplete at this time)

Book Review #8 – “The Road to Cana by Anne Rice; published 2008, Random House Publishers.

[this is Book Two of her Two-Part series “Christ the Lord“; Book One is “Out of Egypt” published 2005]

Genre of the Book. How would a reader describe this book? Most would call it historical fiction, while she simply referred to it as a novel. Soon after returning to her Catholic roots, while sitting in a church pew, novelist Anne Rice was struck forcefully by one thought… “I think Jesus wants me to tell his story.” Later, she called her work a “realistic fictional portrait of Our Lord in Time,” and described her “Christ the Lord” series as “rooted in the faith that the Creator of the Universe became human in the person of Jesus Christ and dwelt among us… In these two novels the magnificent mystery of the Incarnation is accepted and affirmed as fact.” During her epiphany in that church pew, she was inspired to “write the Life of Jesus Christ. So I consecrated the book to Christ. I entirely consecrated my writing and vowed to write only for the greater glory of God.” Essentially, Anne Rice believed that “Jesus is who he says he is in the Gospels,” and decided to base her novel on the truth and reality of Christ.

Overview of the Life of Anne Rice (1941-2021). Her life story reads like a dramatic novel loaded with unexpected twists and turns, unpredictable ups and down, mournful tragedies and triumphant joys. She seemed deeply conflicted most of her life while also at times able to embrace a deep faith in God. She undoubtedly quoted often enough to herself from the gospel story, “I believe, help my unbelief.” Her prolific writing career included 28 published books with over 100 million copies sold, and so was one of the most popular authors in the modern era.