In his farce Towing Jehovah, James Morrow presents us with a troubling problem: God™ is dead. Not metaphorically dead, mind you. Physically dead, floating face up in the Atlantic Ocean, and starting to smell from the rot. (Damn equatorial climate.) So a towboat is employed by an embarassed yet oddly vindicated Vatican to pull the former Deity’s colossal carcass to the Arctic Circle, where his body will be easier to preserve (and explore).

While in tow, the crew of the towboat take it upon themselves to venture inside God’s™ brain. God™ is only recently passed, and there are still some neurons firing away in the divine mind. Along the arm of a dying ganglion they run into a soon-to-be ghost of God’s™ rapidly deteriorating mind: one Augustine of Hippo.

Poor Augustine. He’s troubled. It seems that every sinful, lewd instinct imaginable is floating around in his soul, each competing for his attention. Each in turn gains his full attention. Each in turn causes him terror and regret. Here he sits in the mind of God™, the most tempted man in history, torn apart by sinful desires he fears are more than mere temptations.

Except that this is not the “historical Augustine” at all. This is the ideal Augustine, of whom the historical Augustine is merely a pale imitation. But which is the exaggeration?