Review
David Maine is fast carving himself out a niche as an edgy
re-teller of biblical stories. First came his interpretation of Noah's Ark
(titled
The Preservationist in the USA and
The Flood in the UK:
2004), in which a brooding Yahweh takes a Sicilian approach to his creation
sending all but but his favored family to sleep with the fishes. Then came
Fallen (2005) in which the Bible's first family recount their tales of
woe in reverse chronological order, shifting viewpoints from Cain to Abel to
Adam, and lastly to Eve.
Now he returns with
The Book of Samson - a rip-roaring and audacious
interpretation of the life of Samson, the Herculean hero of the Israelites famed
for his big hair, huge strength, weakness for the ladies and ability to kill
3000 in a day with the jawbone of a donkey. It's a fantastically
entertaining read...
Beyond the Book
David Maine was born in 1963 and grew up in Farmington, Connecticut. He
attended Oberlin College and the University of Arizona and has worked in the
mental-health systems of Massachusetts and Arizona. He has taught English in
Morocco and Pakistan, and since 1998 has lived in Lahore, Pakistan, with his
wife, journalist and novelist,
Uzma Aslam Khan (author of
The Story of Noble Rot, 2001; and
Trespassing, 2003), who was born in Karachi, and has studied and taught English in
the USA, Morocco and Lahore.
The story of Samson appears in the Old Testament Book of Judges. It
also appears in the Tanakh (the sacred book of Judaism, combining the Torah and
other writings) where Samson is known as Shimshon or Simson, which apparently...
