Several Bible stories get a rewrite in this funny collection by This American Life
contributing editor Goldstein (Lenny Bruce Is Dead
). In this version, David kills Goliath not so much for his people as for laughs, and Jonah's lesser-known brother Vito fears that God's hand in Jonah's stint inside the whale has less to do with Jonah than Vito's own role in a youthful penis-touching incident. In “My Troubles (A Work in Progress, by Joseph of N—),” a worried father-to-be deals with the ambiguities of having one's wife knocked up by an angel. The voices of these stories sound like that of the semiobservant Jew in the book's preface, who describes one of God's failed universes as consisting “of just one person—a man named Morris who sat in a room by himself, trying to decide whether to cuff his pants or let them drag.” With refashioned language and reimagined motivations, Goldstein's biblical characters evoke the kind of touching truths only found at the bottom of deep barrel laughs. (Apr.)
