International Gay & Lesbian Review

The Flesh of the Word

• Fiction
• Publisher: 1stBooks Library
• Publication Date: 2002

The problem with this book is that it's too short. Rosato's fast-reading novella tells the story of Thomas Sanders, a veterinarian and a gay man who, as the book opens is caring for Alex, a long-time friend at the end stage of AIDS. Walking home one night from the hospital, he has a mystical vision of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, when a wooden statue of the B.V.M. in a shop window seems to come to life and proffer him a gift of the sufferings of the world. Soon after he's taunted and tempted by a devil-like character in the sexy young man Lucas. When he overcomes the temptation, he's cast into a deeper more mystical experience from which he awakes to find he's been marked with the stigmata, the wounds of the crucified Jesus. Ending up in the same hospital as Alex and still in his reverie, he gets up from the emergency room and goes to his friend's room and placing his hands on Alex's cheek, allowing the blood from his wounds to flow freely, he heals Alex instantaneously. What a set-up! "The Flesh of the Word" is, on the one hand, a novel about how a gay man's spiritual consciousness can achieve the heights of magical/mystical reality. It's also an indictment of the organized Church. For, as you might imagine, Catholic investigators and members of the hierarchy are not at all happy that a out homosexual seems to have achieved such a gift they thought they were jealously guarding for purposes of Church recruitment and Divine validation of ecclesiastical authority. The tightly-written narrative moves through several more mystical experiences as Tom Sanders stuggles to prove himself to the investigators and to God. I won't reveal the ending; it comes as a surprise--and a little too soon. There was more that could have been elucidated about Sanders' virtue, which is always presented as the natural virtue of a conscious and conscientious gay man. But I will praise Richard Rosato for boldly daring to resolve his plot (as this reviewer dared in my little novel, "Plague") by bringing a miraculous end to AIDS. Miracle endings happen in novels, more than real life. But in real life, gay men do indeed struggle with the quest to be good and virtuous and, even, to save the world through faith and goodness. "The Flesh of the Word" nicely and neatly metaphorizes that struggle so many of us find ourselves involved in just because of who we are. The book is--necessarily--awfully Catholic, but it would most likely bring a thrill of fervor to the hearts of spiritually-oriented gay men Catholic or not. And most of us these days would enjoy the Church's getting its comeuppance.

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