Nothing Sacred

NOTHING SACRED - A Divine Comedy

I Just Talked To God!
Or so it seemed. All I know is, for a few pleasurable days, I did not feel alone in the universe. Martin J. Featherston, with his new novel, Nothing Sacred: ‘A Divine Comedy,’ has created a work of literary fiction that flies in the face of the spiritual God we think we know and universal reality. In the book, he outlines the fact that linear time, as we humans experience it, is but a mere illusion, one all five-sensory humans require in order to see themselves through life, while at the same time incorporating the idea of God and the universe as a singularity, a whole within itself that is the sum total of all its parts, a single God for us all in a single wholly (or holy) integrated sphere.
Nothing Sacred: ‘A Divine Comedy’ is just that, hardly sacred in the sense of Christian doctrine, but ‘all sacred’ in its attempt to address all things belonging to or connected with God in relation to His view of the universe and current humanity; and it is extremely funny, in a profound, sometimes even cynical, way, but cynical innuendo in the sense of a loving God’s innocent view of present human thought, belief, and conduct. The book, especially during the opening chapters, made me laugh so hard I had to put it down to compose myself before continuing on. Martin J. Featherston takes the prophesy of the return of Jesus/God to a whole new level, transforming it into the return of God in the guise of an unknown man, a John Doe, discovered in the Arizona desert barely clinging to life, then takes the reader on a mystery tour of unknowns, encompassing bad guys, good guys, supposed good guys that are bad, and criminally bad guys that end up being good. When the story inadvertently leaks out that a man calling himself God––a near-death patient in a top Phoenix, Arizona hospital––is healing other patients with only the power of his special touch, word quickly spreads, involving publicity-seeking doctors and hospital administrators, the frenzy of the media, the Vatican, and one mysterious man hell-bent on doing away with the man calling himself God. The story smoothly leaps back and forth through time, from present day to 12,042 BCE and an early Homo sapien named Nog, a magical time of infantile universal awareness and the onset of human enlightenment. The main protagonist, outside of God that is, a low-ranking newspaper reporter from Toronto named Earl Grey, like the tea, is selected through a lottery process to be the only individual allowed to interview and report on the hospital’s elite patient, and ends up being a very special individual indeed to the so-called Almighty, with both men developing a deep, intimate relationship that profoundly changes the reporter’s useless life. So do we end up finding out who and what God really is? Well, I won’t ruin the surprise for the reader, but suffice it to say one comes away from the story feeling satisfied with the answers provided.
Nothing Sacred: ‘A Divine Comedy’ is so well researched. It encompasses religion, faith, love, and science in a way that is not only understandable and plausible, but endearing to the reader, opening up one’s mind to thought processes well-beyond our segregated and divided beliefs as human beings today, all of us attempting to find the purpose and meaning to life.
Congratulations, Mr. Featherston! You are a masterful storyteller with an innate talent for writing and a universal clarity and grasp of the unknown second to none, and one storyteller who managed to capture this reader’s undivided attention. If literary ‘art’ still exists in today’s culture, Martin J. Featherston’s novel is one fine example of it. I highly recommend Nothing Sacred: ‘A Divine Comedy’ to any and all readers, no matter what their preferred genre. After all, how often does one actually get to talk to God? Five billion stars for this great read!