Twice a False Messiah is a tantalizing thriller, set in the tombs of Egypt and along the River Nile. It's 1978 and there is a spiritual trembling abroad in the world (Egypt and Israel lurching towards a Peace Treaty, the Shah wobbling in Iran) as a Catalan Jew and a lapsed Catholic Yank set off in search of the True Name of God.
The Story Behind This Book
In the fall of 1978, my wife and travel partner, Jude, and I were in the midst of a nearly 2 year-long trip. We set off up the Nile in tandem with an historian friend of ours, naively interested in exploring Egyptian history. Two months later we were outside the Mahdi's tomb watching rogue dervishes whirl against the fading sun. The genesis for False Messiah, and its setting, were in my back pocket, though it took many years to tease out the tendrils of theology that were needed to undergird it.
