City of God

Read by John Rubenstein
Three cassettes, Approx. 5 hours

In the autumn of 1999 the large brass cross behind the altar of St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in lower Manhattan disappears and mysteriously reappears on the roof of the Synagogue for Evolutionary Judaism on the Upper West Side. The church's maverick rector and the young rabbinical couple who lead the synagogue set about attempting to learn about the vandals who have committed this strange double act of desecration.

A writer, alerted to the story by a newspaper article, befriends the priest and the rabbis and finds that their own struggles with their respective traditions are relevant to the case. As the narrative broadens, more and more people are implicated in what may be the elusive prophesy of a new American culture. Daringly poised at the junction of the sacred and profane, the story opens into a multi-voiced narrative that finally incorporates the monumental historical events and predominating ideas of our age.

Filled with the sights and sounds of New York, and with a cast of vividly drawn characters that includes scientists, war veterans, prelates, Holocaust survivors, cabinet members, theologians, New York Times reporters, film actors and crooners, this dazzling, inventive masterpiece emerges as the American novel of our time--a narrative of the 20th century written for the 21st.