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Review from Mad Hatter's Review, Issue 6

The J Affect
by Peter Burstin

“We say the naysayers. We do the undoing. We solve for the unsolved. We
live as the unlived. We feel for the unfelt. For the unaware, We make
aware,” states Jahbb in the opening page. If the acute reader perceives
a misspelling bad-grammar moment upon reading and dissecting the final
phrase of the sentence ending with “We make aware,”
that reader will be in for a shock to find that contrary to popular
grammarian thinking, the post-comma capitalized “We” is intended. No,
not a fancy-dancy artsy “oh I’m so nifty” moment, a purposeful moment
as the words and tale that unfold make clear. Yes, dear reader, if the
diction and grammar produce an oddly solar plexus centered discomfort,
and the oddly familiar Messianic sentences that proceed are naggingly
apparent, give in to the urge and understand that this is a novel about
the big G, the big J, the God of all gods and his son, Jesus.

“I awoke in my own bed under a blanket of sweat and tears. It took a
while to realize I was back in the confines of my home. But was I safe?
Prophets: Krsna, Abraham, and a naked man. My back was aching, but it
was not sore muscles or bed cramps. Blood-stained sheets lay under me.
The blood was dried in lines from my back. In the mirror by the bed, I
could see the fresh scratches had coagulated. Was it from the rocks
Jahbb dragged me over, aiding escape from the Neanderthal? Could I have
done that? Nothing physical has ever come back from the dreams. All I
knew was that it hurt like hell and was sure to scar. Was it last
night? How long was I out? The dreams had taken my life away and I had
just found they came from God, and if true, He had damn sure better
have an explanation waiting.”

Sure to shock and offend the religious and political right, The J
Affect paints a scenario of what will happen to our civilization if
war, environmental neglect, avarice, deceit, and hypocrisy remain
unchecked. And before you go running away at this realization
screaming, “Oh no, not another messianic militant christen gutter splat
book,” stop and read on, you will not be disappointed. Why? Because
Peter Burstin has succeeded where religious zealots and leaders have
failed millennia upon millennia; painting a consistent portrait of the
god of all life as the loving, caring, and giving being God so truly
is, instead of the unbalanced, vengeful, recklessly jealous, and
homicidal god that persists in the dogmatic domain.

But a being that operates from a place of absolute power with its
concurrent command of caring and love is a god that all fell in love
with eons ago, is it not? And when Jesus instructs in Matthew, 22:37,
“You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your mind,” it seems unlikely that Jesus was
asking us to give all of our person to an execrable uncontrollable
monster. Since Jesus failed to return sometime in the period of 1 A.D.
as he promised in Matthew 16: 27-28, “…. Verily I say unto you, there
be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the
Son of man coming in his kingdom,” it is clear that as all those he
spoke to at the time are long since dead, the second coming did not
occur, at least not in the way the church has conveniently taught since
then, focusing not on God’s love, but God’s unerring vengeance, relying
instead on passages from the book of Revelations, despite the fact that
the relevance and authenticity of this particular book still remains
the most hotly contested book in the collection.

So what does this force feeding of the same old scriptural passages
have to do with The J Affect? What is has to do with it is set the
back-story for the premise of the book and its elegant reinterpretation
of the same old same old. On this account, the book is a pleasure to
read. Gone is the outlandish rhetorical dogma that fills the minds and
pulpits of the religious institutions of today, but consistent is one
message: God of love, forgiveness, and caring.

If you have traveled the road as many before and after yourself surely
have, a refreshing moment escalating into a thunderous cascade of
refreshing moments bordering on rapturous joy are possible and freely
given by the one true God. Otherwise, life is no more than trip down
The Death Road as the one in Bolivia, where each metre is one removed
from probable death as one misjudgment in steering can occasion a
1,000-foot plunge down the sheer mountainside.

In short on the topic of Christianity, if you have said to yourself
the very words of the narrator of The J Affect, “Wherever I was, I
wanted no part of it,” then grab a copy of this book. And if you find
yourself embarking upon this reading adventure like no other and find
your fingers magnetically drawn to flip page after page not stopping
until the entire novel has been read, call it the J effect. And if you
choose to believe it is God, who guides your hand, you could be right,
but then again, this review is about the book. What you choose to
believe is entirely inconsequential.

Publisher
FS Laurel Press
http://www.thejaffect.com/

Review Link:
http://www.madhattersreview.com/issue6/book_reviews.shtml#burstin