Retro Review: Honk If You Are Jesus by Peter Goldsworthy

 

I read this novel when it first came out, and later heard the author speak at my school about a book the Year 12 students were doing for English. 

He did mention this one, though, and described it as his Jurassic Park book. 

Which it was, sort of. No dinosaurs, but certainly referring to bringing back extinct creatures…

I reread it recently, in ebook, and while I had thought it might be a bit dated, it wasn’t, really. There will always be something, of course. The Internet was in its infancy when this book was published, and not everyone had, or could get, a mobile phone, so certain things might have been different if it had been published more recently.. But the rest was not at all bad. 

For example, there has recently been talk of bringing back the thylacine, aka the Tasmanian Tiger. This novel, published in 1992, had a Tiger brought back, plus dodos. It even suggested that a thylacine might be started in the pouch of a Tasmanian Devil, later in an artificial pouch. 

The heroine, Dr Mara Fox, has been in a job where she does not much beyond abortions, though she is an expert in reproductive medicine. One day she gets a call from a Bible college in Queensland, run by American televangelist Hollis Schultz. She can be a Professor, in charge of an entire department in the college’s hospital, plus have whatever advanced equipment she wants. 

Suspicious - there has to be a catch - she accepts anyway and moves to Queensland’s Gold Coast. There, she meets youthful genius William Scanlon, who brought back dodos and has more recently revived a thylacine. 

But more is planned, much more, connected with all those religious relics being brought to the college from overseas; the thylacine is just a test run, though a very exciting one.

It’s pretty obvious from early on in the novel what the religious nut Hollis Schultz has in mind, but I didn’t mind; it’s great fun, if silly, an easy read for the beach. 

You may need to get this one in ebook if interested, but worth checking out. It’s available in both Kindle and Apple Books.