Danny Gospel

There is a strange beauty to this book and the story. I can not even say if it is the best-written book I ever read. Something with a sense of melancholia in this book, which also encompasses beauty. This is definetly one of my favourites and always will be.......more

Genre: In terms of genre, Danny Gospel is not a novel, but a comic romance, a commedia. The romances that come to mind when I read this are Confederacy of Dunces (Toole), Wise Blood (O'Connor), The Last Gentleman (Percy), Invisible Man (Ellison), and Song of Solomon (Morrison). In fact, the story has......more

Was Francis of Assisi insane? Were he alive today, would he be on medication? Would John the Baptist be subjected to compulsory counseling? One wonders if Prozac or Haldol have deprived our times of a prophet or saint or two. These questions occur to me right after meeting a lovable lunatic who just......more

DANNY GOSPEL is one of the most extraordinary novels I've ever read. It's as original as A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, and as spiritually-true as A HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE. Its hero is as anti-heroic as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Seraphim of Sarov. David Athey knows the territory--the risks and unpr......more

As a child and teen, Danny travelled with his family around the region performing gospel music. It was so common that most people forgot what their actual last name was, they just started calling them the Gospel's. Slowly though, for various reasons, his family starts dying, and by the time he reach......more