Tucson Weekly: Media Mix (June 25

Media Mix SNAKE SMITTEN: Like the inspired music emanating from the dried-pumpkin flute of his protagonist, snake charmer Sonalal, the prose of author Sanjay Nigam similarly weaves an entrancing melody that's part fable, part novel and part magic. The Snake Charmer is a lovely work of fiction--smart, exotic, with an understated humor and the clear, simple voice of the story's narrator: Sonalal, a non-descript street performer in Delhi, whose terrible brush with greatness leads down a twisted, enchanted path. "Some lifetimes seem to hinge on a single day," the novel begins, "and for Sonalal, today was that day."
Nigam, a practicing scientist and M.D. at Harvard University, received advance praise for his debut novel from writers Lisa See, Oscar Hijuelos, Donald Antrim, Elizabeth Gilbert and Shashi Tharoor.
Born in India and raised in Arizona (the latter a fact which makes small appearances in his tragicomic novel), Nigam will read from and sign copies of The Snake Charmer at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 30, at Borders Books and Music, 4235 N. Oracle Road. Event is free. Call 292-1331 for more information.
THAT IS GOOD NEWS: Few things so fill our hearts with joy as the monthly updates to be found in Good News, the over-earnest evangelical rag put out by local Good News Radio Broadcasting, Inc. Good News has all the features of your average general interest newspaper: advice columns, health and society articles, restaurant reviews. But each has its own revelatory take, like an article on alarming trends among teens using the Internet. This should be good for a little moralistic hellfire and brimstone, right?
Don't get too excited: Four percent surveyed apparently use the Internet for religious purposes, and that number is on the rise! "One out of six teens (16 percent) said that within the next five years they expect to use the Internet as a substitute for their current church-based religious experience." Gads. That does kind of rock the ol' boat of salvation, ay neighbors?
Okely dokely. On to the good stuff:
In the "Around the World" section on page 18, we encounter the headline, "Could Jesus Be Cloned?" (It stands in good company with "Halt Put To Strip Bars With Bible Names," a dispatch from Heraklion, Crete; and "Jesus Video Given To Prime Minister," a report from Canberra, Australia.)
Dateline London, England (EP): "Could Jesus be cloned? No, says the Evangelical Alliance UK. In a statement released April 9, the group said, 'There are no genes or chromosomes for God. Divinity is what distinguishes Jesus from the rest of us, and divinity is not contained in DNA.'
"The statement added, 'In Jesus, divinity is united with humanity. If it were ever remotely possible to clone Jesus from cells left behind after his Resurrection, you would be cloning a carpenter from Nazareth, not the divine Son of God.'"
WRONG CAT: In lauding the contents of the summer DoubleTake issue last week, we mistakenly cited Jamaica Kincaid as the author of the book Krik? Krak! (1995). The real author of that entrancing collection of short stories (nominated for a National Book Award) is Edwidge Danticat, a 29-year-old Haitian writer who's lately catapulted into the American limelight, owing in no small part to Oprah. Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory, her 1994 debut novel, has become a national bestseller as the current Oprah Book Club selection.
Danticat's second novel is due in September from Soho Press. Titled Farming the Bones (cloth, $23), it's a story of two star-crossed lovers navigating the tragic landscape of the Haitian massacre unleashed by the Dominican Republic in 1937. Definitely one to watch for.

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