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Dayspring
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Winner of the 2024 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers • Globe and Mail: Best Books of 2024
A singular, stunning debut that transcends and transfigures genre—at once a bold retelling of biblical tales and an unforgettable contemporary coming-of-age story, connected in collapsing time across millennia.
There are few love stories in the holy books. Love is what ruins. Love is what costs. Love is a flaming sword at our backs, a garden left to ruin and to wild.
In Dayspring, Anthony Oliveira brings to vibrant, glorious life the gospel according to the disciple Christ loved—his companion in the days before the crucifixion, the only instrument that remembers with fidelity his sound.
Sacred, profane, and rich with explicit desire and a poetic attention to form, Dayspring weaves electric and heart-wrenching stories of passion, grief, destruction, and survival into a narrative unmoored in space and time, one that re-examines and re-frames great and doomed figures from scripture and history, even as it casts its keen eye on the trials of modern life.
Seamlessly blending fiction, memoir, and verse in the exhilarating tradition of Anne Carson and Madeline Miller, Dayspring is an immersive, mesmerizing work, one that wrenches beauty from cataclysm and finds bliss in apocalypse.
A singular, stunning debut that transcends and transfigures genre—at once a bold retelling of biblical tales and an unforgettable contemporary coming-of-age story, connected in collapsing time across millennia.
There are few love stories in the holy books. Love is what ruins. Love is what costs. Love is a flaming sword at our backs, a garden left to ruin and to wild.
In Dayspring, Anthony Oliveira brings to vibrant, glorious life the gospel according to the disciple Christ loved—his companion in the days before the crucifixion, the only instrument that remembers with fidelity his sound.
Sacred, profane, and rich with explicit desire and a poetic attention to form, Dayspring weaves electric and heart-wrenching stories of passion, grief, destruction, and survival into a narrative unmoored in space and time, one that re-examines and re-frames great and doomed figures from scripture and history, even as it casts its keen eye on the trials of modern life.
Seamlessly blending fiction, memoir, and verse in the exhilarating tradition of Anne Carson and Madeline Miller, Dayspring is an immersive, mesmerizing work, one that wrenches beauty from cataclysm and finds bliss in apocalypse.
432 pages, Paperback
First published April 2, 2024
298 people are currently reading
13738 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Oliveira
89 books162 followersAnthony Oliveira is a National Magazine, Reads Rainbow, and GLAAD award-winning author, film programmer, pop culture critic, and PhD living in Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 461 reviews
May 3, 2024
I feel like my utter disdain for and dismal knowledge of the bible and/or theology as a whole have somewhat hindered my understanding of some of the nuances here but... you know… it was still c*nt.
April 1, 2024
Happy Easter! So, this is an ambitious book. And I don't think I'll be able to fully capture the great extent the author has explored same-sex desire and Christianity, but I will try. Bear with me.
Dayspring is not so much a novel as a loose collection of free verse, Biblical passages, and poetry by Christian authors of the past millennia put together as a meditation on the naturalness of same-sex desire and the religion. Much is noted for you, but most is not: it's up to the reader to disentangle what is a reworked passage of Kings, what is a phrase from a John Milton poem, and what is the author's own words. More than an author, Oliveira is a collage artist: much like musicians sampling a beat, the author retools the works of two millennia of Christian thought on the erotics of Christ into a contemporary understanding, adding his own lyrics to the greater sampling he has pulled from the pits.
The book follows the point of view of "John the Beloved," the beloved disciple of Christ, as he grapples with the intensity (dare I say, sometimes abusiveness) of his connection with Jesus while knowing how his loved one's story will always end. A bit like Achilles and Patroclus, with some interesting HIV/AIDS vibes, John narrates the story of Jesus, complete with twenty-something disciples, single-mother Mary, and vivacious Mary Magdalene. It makes interesting and appropriate use of rubrication to indicate the words of Jesus—which paired with what that kid can say—is often hilarious.
The experience felt a bit like archeology. I was raised quite religiously in the "Evangelical" Pentecostal church and would attend Mass with my grandma in the summer. I learned a lot of the Bible, but not nearly enough to keep quite up with this. I spent the first half pretty intensely glossing it: beyond the usual canon, Oliveira makes use of Apocrypha, texts from the Koran, and later Medieval tradition to draw the greatest amount of material on the life of Christ as he can. For obvious reasons, much of the first half works in the story of David and Johnathan, with the Gospels coming in heavy as the story of Jesus' preaching begins.
One of the most coherent uses of Christian texts is the plethora of Beguine and "Free Spirit" thinkers. All of the big ones (Marguerite Porete, Meister Eckhart, Sister Catherine Treatise) make an appearance, and when paired with poetry from the "mainstream" work Juan de la Cruz, make a cogent argument for the ridiculousness of the former's prosecution. In these, Oliveira highlights the eroticism and emotional intensity of the potential relationship with Christ.
The story is also far from linear. Weaving in and out of Biblical towns set-dressed with contemporary objects, slang, and scenarios, the author has done what Christians have done since the beginning of time—place them in a time and place that allows us to relate to these figures as closely as humanly possible. It took a little for me to buy into it, but with 400 pages to play in, I quickly figured out how to wrestle with it. Just as desire is timeless, so is God—and just as he is omnipresent—so is time.
There's far, far too much to go into detail with everything that this book plays with. I recommend glossing as I did to some extent, but make sure to watch out for obvious reworks of the Gospels, the Old Testament histories, and Revelations. So much Revelations. The author absolutely soaks his prose in Biblical imagery, often taking phrases, sentences, and whole pages into it. It's tangled and beautiful, but a tiny bit the reason why I could not rate this 5 stars. With so much taken from other sources, much of the construction of this is simply other people's work. That's fine. I think Oliveira is a talented writer and obviously an extremely talented synthesizer, but I could not in good conscience pretend that he is the sole progenitor of the entirety of this work.
Being a person of even some faith in God while being queer is often more a headache than it's worth. Most people think you're secretly self-hating or delusional, and maybe we are, but my relationship with God and religion will always be a warm place in my heart I can call to when at my lowest. It's no surprise that many try to disavow as much of their past as they can, so this work was a wonderful, wonderful read over Holy Week, and I'm grateful for it.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review 🙏
Dayspring is not so much a novel as a loose collection of free verse, Biblical passages, and poetry by Christian authors of the past millennia put together as a meditation on the naturalness of same-sex desire and the religion. Much is noted for you, but most is not: it's up to the reader to disentangle what is a reworked passage of Kings, what is a phrase from a John Milton poem, and what is the author's own words. More than an author, Oliveira is a collage artist: much like musicians sampling a beat, the author retools the works of two millennia of Christian thought on the erotics of Christ into a contemporary understanding, adding his own lyrics to the greater sampling he has pulled from the pits.
The book follows the point of view of "John the Beloved," the beloved disciple of Christ, as he grapples with the intensity (dare I say, sometimes abusiveness) of his connection with Jesus while knowing how his loved one's story will always end. A bit like Achilles and Patroclus, with some interesting HIV/AIDS vibes, John narrates the story of Jesus, complete with twenty-something disciples, single-mother Mary, and vivacious Mary Magdalene. It makes interesting and appropriate use of rubrication to indicate the words of Jesus—which paired with what that kid can say—is often hilarious.
The experience felt a bit like archeology. I was raised quite religiously in the "Evangelical" Pentecostal church and would attend Mass with my grandma in the summer. I learned a lot of the Bible, but not nearly enough to keep quite up with this. I spent the first half pretty intensely glossing it: beyond the usual canon, Oliveira makes use of Apocrypha, texts from the Koran, and later Medieval tradition to draw the greatest amount of material on the life of Christ as he can. For obvious reasons, much of the first half works in the story of David and Johnathan, with the Gospels coming in heavy as the story of Jesus' preaching begins.
One of the most coherent uses of Christian texts is the plethora of Beguine and "Free Spirit" thinkers. All of the big ones (Marguerite Porete, Meister Eckhart, Sister Catherine Treatise) make an appearance, and when paired with poetry from the "mainstream" work Juan de la Cruz, make a cogent argument for the ridiculousness of the former's prosecution. In these, Oliveira highlights the eroticism and emotional intensity of the potential relationship with Christ.
The story is also far from linear. Weaving in and out of Biblical towns set-dressed with contemporary objects, slang, and scenarios, the author has done what Christians have done since the beginning of time—place them in a time and place that allows us to relate to these figures as closely as humanly possible. It took a little for me to buy into it, but with 400 pages to play in, I quickly figured out how to wrestle with it. Just as desire is timeless, so is God—and just as he is omnipresent—so is time.
There's far, far too much to go into detail with everything that this book plays with. I recommend glossing as I did to some extent, but make sure to watch out for obvious reworks of the Gospels, the Old Testament histories, and Revelations. So much Revelations. The author absolutely soaks his prose in Biblical imagery, often taking phrases, sentences, and whole pages into it. It's tangled and beautiful, but a tiny bit the reason why I could not rate this 5 stars. With so much taken from other sources, much of the construction of this is simply other people's work. That's fine. I think Oliveira is a talented writer and obviously an extremely talented synthesizer, but I could not in good conscience pretend that he is the sole progenitor of the entirety of this work.
Being a person of even some faith in God while being queer is often more a headache than it's worth. Most people think you're secretly self-hating or delusional, and maybe we are, but my relationship with God and religion will always be a warm place in my heart I can call to when at my lowest. It's no surprise that many try to disavow as much of their past as they can, so this work was a wonderful, wonderful read over Holy Week, and I'm grateful for it.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review 🙏
Currently reading
May 17, 2024author described this book as about “being gay and getting fucked in the butt by god but like in a god-honouring way” — say no more, im in bb
May 3, 2024
i really feel like i put all of my eggs in one basket with this one, and that did not work out in my favor.
i was expecting this to be a heart wrenching story of love and grief and trauma
and what i got was a bunch of convoluted vignettes with way too many big words that diluted the overall impact and really just gave me a throbbing headache every time i picked this up.
this is one of those books that i personally feel is way too focused on the form, that all intended messaging becomes lost.
it was so boring, it had no impact, we were bouncing back and forth and back and forth between making complete sense, biblical talk, random cliched messages, and absolute nonsense.
it was a roller coaster of emotions
it was extremely pretentious
and honestly annoying that someone could write a book that feels so inaccessible
like you literally need to have three books open at once: this one, a dictionary, and a bible
i didn’t like it and i wouldn’t recommend.
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i went into this expecting it to be something similar to billy ray belcourt… and that’s extremely offensive to billy ray belcourt
i was expecting this to be a heart wrenching story of love and grief and trauma
and what i got was a bunch of convoluted vignettes with way too many big words that diluted the overall impact and really just gave me a throbbing headache every time i picked this up.
this is one of those books that i personally feel is way too focused on the form, that all intended messaging becomes lost.
it was so boring, it had no impact, we were bouncing back and forth and back and forth between making complete sense, biblical talk, random cliched messages, and absolute nonsense.
it was a roller coaster of emotions
it was extremely pretentious
and honestly annoying that someone could write a book that feels so inaccessible
like you literally need to have three books open at once: this one, a dictionary, and a bible
i didn’t like it and i wouldn’t recommend.
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i went into this expecting it to be something similar to billy ray belcourt… and that’s extremely offensive to billy ray belcourt
November 24, 2024
another disappointing read, all i know is suffering
June 25, 2024
This book changed me. I can't begin to say how overwhelmingly beautiful, powerful, and brave it was. It does so much that sounds impossible and yet it all flows. It’s so queer! It’s so full of life! On its face – a book about Christ’s gay lover that’s often very frankly erotic – it could sound irreverent, but it reveres the Christian tradition enough to treat it as a living one. It does so much that feels new, that makes Christianity feel like some wild, newly uncovered kind of sacredness. I live in the Western world! I was raised Christian and have spent so much of my adult life grappling with my own understanding of the Christian tradition! And Dayspring made it all feel like some brand new experience, some pure and holy fiction, the way you can kiss the same person a thousand thousand times and it still seems like some unfathomable fire the two of you just invented. And it does all this even as it makes clear that it is in long conversation with many other voices – saints, poets, theologians, the writers of the Bible itself – often weaving them directly through the text, sometimes as poetic translations and sometimes as-is. It moves through so many different registers and modes in a way that feels seamless, and collapses timeframes in a way that feels all of a piece. Of course Jesus and his beloved disciple did math homework together and fooled around at high school sleepovers. Of course empire found a man inspiring others to radical love against hierarchy and it killed him. I would have been amazed at this book purely formally even if it didn't do it for me personally, but it does and I need to yell about it! This book will not be for everyone but it was for me and I loved it so much.
It boggles my mind how even under the most conservative religious view of Jesus, he was fully God and fully human, but it’s ludicrous or disrespectful to imagine him with any kind of romantic love or sexuality, which is a deep part of being human for many if not most of us? Even though the Bible often compares the love between God and the church to the love between spouses? Even though if God is the source and experience of all love and wonder, and if being in relationship with God is seeking an intimacy with the divine spark of life that fuels and forms the universe, and if that relationship can be one of passion, vulnerability, joy, longing, intimate knowing, fire, delight, laughter, cherishing as broad as the universe and as specific as spit on skin? And the message of putting all divisions and bullshit and fear and hunger for power aside and just loving each other powerfully and boldly and as much as the world and every one of us in it have room for?? If all of that plus the Song of Songs and so many mystics and it’s wrong to say Jesus was queer and loved his beloved in the midst of loving the world??? No! It’s beautiful!! This book expresses that overwhelmingly!!
Above all this was a beautiful story of a beautiful love. My heart hurts, my spirit feels bigger. I dog-eared so many pages and I’m so glad this book is in the world forever. Please everyone who knows me IRL read this and come yell at/with me, oh my fucking god pun joyfully intended!!!!
It boggles my mind how even under the most conservative religious view of Jesus, he was fully God and fully human, but it’s ludicrous or disrespectful to imagine him with any kind of romantic love or sexuality, which is a deep part of being human for many if not most of us? Even though the Bible often compares the love between God and the church to the love between spouses? Even though if God is the source and experience of all love and wonder, and if being in relationship with God is seeking an intimacy with the divine spark of life that fuels and forms the universe, and if that relationship can be one of passion, vulnerability, joy, longing, intimate knowing, fire, delight, laughter, cherishing as broad as the universe and as specific as spit on skin? And the message of putting all divisions and bullshit and fear and hunger for power aside and just loving each other powerfully and boldly and as much as the world and every one of us in it have room for?? If all of that plus the Song of Songs and so many mystics and it’s wrong to say Jesus was queer and loved his beloved in the midst of loving the world??? No! It’s beautiful!! This book expresses that overwhelmingly!!
Above all this was a beautiful story of a beautiful love. My heart hurts, my spirit feels bigger. I dog-eared so many pages and I’m so glad this book is in the world forever. Please everyone who knows me IRL read this and come yell at/with me, oh my fucking god pun joyfully intended!!!!
June 2, 2024
Crucifixion + worship as literal tokens of Christianity: trite, melodramatic, lowkey creepy
Crucifixion + worship as metaphors for queer love and pain: based, goated, unafraid to reference or not reference, showstopping, spectacular
Dayspring was such a joyful, creative, and immersive read. Oliveira interprets Jesus' relationship with the Beloved Disciple as a homoerotic one, presenting lubricious intimacies, unshakeable faith, and heart-rending grief. Dayspring was experimental in the tradition of Anne Carson et al., bending time, space, and literary genres in a playful and convincing way.
Highly, highly recommend this one for anyone willing to take a chance on something a bit different.
Crucifixion + worship as metaphors for queer love and pain: based, goated, unafraid to reference or not reference, showstopping, spectacular
Dayspring was such a joyful, creative, and immersive read. Oliveira interprets Jesus' relationship with the Beloved Disciple as a homoerotic one, presenting lubricious intimacies, unshakeable faith, and heart-rending grief. Dayspring was experimental in the tradition of Anne Carson et al., bending time, space, and literary genres in a playful and convincing way.
Highly, highly recommend this one for anyone willing to take a chance on something a bit different.
December 11, 2023
4.5 stars --
i'm not sure if you're supposed to rant & rave about books on bookstagram that don't come out for another 4 months, but i'm gonna do it anyways because i really really enjoyed anthony oliveira's upcoming novel 'dayspring'!!!
woof where to start with this one? there's not really a linear plot, so it's hard to describe, but imagine a book about a queer man coming of age & dating another queer man, but the man he's dating is simultaneously jesus & not jesus, and the book is written in prose poetry, and kind of like the bible in that the words of christ are in red ink. i've got you hooked now, right?
this book was just so beautifully written, and while i wasn't always 100% sure what was going on (i'm not the most fluent in the nuances of jesus' story), this book was full of heart & passion & queer yearning. i felt myself relating to the protagonist a number of times as he tried to find his place in the world alongside that of god. i found myself coming back to specific passages that resonated with me, and the ending had me holding my breath.
this is a very unique book, and i can see it not working for some people, but it worked well for me. highly highly recommend!
i'm not sure if you're supposed to rant & rave about books on bookstagram that don't come out for another 4 months, but i'm gonna do it anyways because i really really enjoyed anthony oliveira's upcoming novel 'dayspring'!!!
woof where to start with this one? there's not really a linear plot, so it's hard to describe, but imagine a book about a queer man coming of age & dating another queer man, but the man he's dating is simultaneously jesus & not jesus, and the book is written in prose poetry, and kind of like the bible in that the words of christ are in red ink. i've got you hooked now, right?
this book was just so beautifully written, and while i wasn't always 100% sure what was going on (i'm not the most fluent in the nuances of jesus' story), this book was full of heart & passion & queer yearning. i felt myself relating to the protagonist a number of times as he tried to find his place in the world alongside that of god. i found myself coming back to specific passages that resonated with me, and the ending had me holding my breath.
this is a very unique book, and i can see it not working for some people, but it worked well for me. highly highly recommend!
August 11, 2023
Every time I picked up this book, as an early reader and a listener to the author's podcast, Dayspring picked me up and carried me with it and set me down, moved by its eloquence and by its raw grief and beauty.
The book draws deeply and carefully from Christian traditions (as a Jewish reader, both the familiar and the surprising), from pop culture, and from deeply personal moments that we all now share.
I finished Dayspring with a tear in my eye and with so much excitement for everyone for when this book arrives in the world.
The book draws deeply and carefully from Christian traditions (as a Jewish reader, both the familiar and the surprising), from pop culture, and from deeply personal moments that we all now share.
I finished Dayspring with a tear in my eye and with so much excitement for everyone for when this book arrives in the world.
June 29, 2024
Hmmm I'm glad I own a copy, as a gay Catholic, but I think the execution left much to be desired. First of all, the poems were incredibly random and arranged without rhyme or reason. I thought the narrative was building up to something (maybe at the end, it built up to the resurrection) but in the end I felt just as unmoored as the beginning. The writing was also a mixed bag. Some passages were incredibly beautiful while most of it felt like the author hitting the enter key randomly; you know that hyper online poetry style without rhythm? This was an interesting compilation of Christian references turned homoerotic but after a while, the repetition made it lose its appeal. It just went on for much too long — what poetry book has over 400 pages?? - without much transformation throughout the manuscript. Maybe I would've enjoyed this more if it were more coherent, less random, and if it solidified the retelling aspect of the narrative. That said, the author clearly created something very unique and experimental, and I'm glad publishing is making space for this.
July 24, 2024
I spent half the time reading this in awe, and the other half confused. It is both beautiful and pretentious, with a non-linear narrative that reveals itself in disjointed bits and pieces. I'm not the most familiar with the bible, though the narrative choice to have biblical passage and retellings interspersed throughout the story in parallel to the contemporary love and tragedy was such a great idea. Someone more well versed with christianity/catholicism will surely take more away from Dayspring than I did, but it was undeniably profound and inspiring either way. Queer love was articulated so viscerally in short, poetic-like fashion. Oliveira has made something quite special here; I can't help wondering if I would've better enjoyed it with a more extensive background knowledge, or if it was a little too convoluted for the general reader.
March 21, 2024
God is gay all the time and all the time God is gay.
I must admit, I’m exhausted after reading this. It is flowery, verse filled ramblings, flowing like the Sea of Galilee under His feet. The author has a way with words, and as lovely as they are, I need to rest.
If you take the time to read this and pause, the satisfaction is overwhelming. It is memoir, biblical stories, comedy, and devastatingly homoerotic. We aren’t meant -as readers- to understand all of it. We’re just simply along for the ride.
I think to truly enjoy this, one needs a working understanding of the Bible and Christianity, (thank you, dad, for forcing me to go to Sunday school my entire childhood) and an open mind. I can’t wait to have the physical copy of this in my hands so I can reread and annotate. So many beautiful quotes and musings. The author took their time and poured their heart out and for that I am grateful. You can open to any page and be whisked away by breathtaking prose. The plot is not linear, just vibes. Extremely unique and unlike anything I have ever read. Jesus as a top is something I’ll always be down for.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All of these thoughts and opinions are my own.
I must admit, I’m exhausted after reading this. It is flowery, verse filled ramblings, flowing like the Sea of Galilee under His feet. The author has a way with words, and as lovely as they are, I need to rest.
If you take the time to read this and pause, the satisfaction is overwhelming. It is memoir, biblical stories, comedy, and devastatingly homoerotic. We aren’t meant -as readers- to understand all of it. We’re just simply along for the ride.
I think to truly enjoy this, one needs a working understanding of the Bible and Christianity, (thank you, dad, for forcing me to go to Sunday school my entire childhood) and an open mind. I can’t wait to have the physical copy of this in my hands so I can reread and annotate. So many beautiful quotes and musings. The author took their time and poured their heart out and for that I am grateful. You can open to any page and be whisked away by breathtaking prose. The plot is not linear, just vibes. Extremely unique and unlike anything I have ever read. Jesus as a top is something I’ll always be down for.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All of these thoughts and opinions are my own.
December 21, 2024
This is an erotic, nonlinear, and anachronistic collection of sweaty encounters, biblical reinterpretations, and lyrical flourishes. Spanning millennia, Oliveira’s ambitious novel captures a dynamic rather than a specific relationship, exploring how love can easily be veiled by worship-like obsession. Even when that veil is lifted, the desperation it conceals rarely subsides. The writing’s grandiosity fits perfectly within the novel’s liturgical atmosphere, making the tension between sacred dogma and explicitly carnal desire all the more striking. For me, reading this felt like performing a sacrament for my younger self who spent years pacing the halls of Catholic high school, roiling over the inescapable certainty of my queerness. Listening to the audiobook further elevated the experience. The creative use of voice distortion, seamless transitions between narrators, natural soundscapes, and hymnal instrumentals deepened the immersive, almost ritualistic quality of the story. This is a novel that feels like both an indulgence and a reclamation.
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“miracles are ugly, inelegant things. interferences in the game, triumphs of ethics over aesthetics, weird hacks that disrupt the glorious concatenation of time and space, unfair, unrepeatable capricious operations of a mercy whose mercy of quality is not strained.”
“wraith and wreaths and writhe and wrath all come from the same root; they’re all a shape twisting around a hollowness. they’re all defined by the spiralizing loss of the center.”
———————————————————————————
“miracles are ugly, inelegant things. interferences in the game, triumphs of ethics over aesthetics, weird hacks that disrupt the glorious concatenation of time and space, unfair, unrepeatable capricious operations of a mercy whose mercy of quality is not strained.”
“wraith and wreaths and writhe and wrath all come from the same root; they’re all a shape twisting around a hollowness. they’re all defined by the spiralizing loss of the center.”
May 25, 2024
I wouldn't call this a review, more like a mishmash of my thoughts, because I have many of them:
You cannot binge this book, it is too repetitive. I enjoyed this more the more I put it down and picked it back up as I was then refreshed with the writing style and story. I tried to read this for several hours and quickly got bored. The writing is repetitive, and the main voice seems to do nothing but go on and on about how great Jesus was. The language is beautiful until it gets to be too much, kind of like a really rich chocolate cake. That being said, this book was difficult to stop reading because line spacing made "just one more page" so easy.
I also felt like I didn't know the main character at all. The only thing I know about him is he's loyal and in love with Jesus and a bottom. That's all I got. And it got so so tiring to hear him gush about Jesus over and over and over. Like all the time. The parts where he talked about his faults were probably my favorites. And it went on for 400 pages.
I know the major stories of the Bible quite well, but I feel like this book was written for readers who knew the Bible much more fluently than I. You can tell there are little references and details all throughout this book that totally went over my head because I didn't know the Bible completely, which I'm disappointed about. It could be that I just wasn't the target audience.
The one thing I absolutely loved about this book: the way it portrayed the realness of teenage boys. This book was horny, it smelled like b.o. sometimes, there was stubble and acne and teasing and cursing and tenderness in a way that made the boys so, so alive. I have read many books in which the realities of girlhood were written like this, but this was the first which did the same for boys.
This book fell into a trap I feel a lot of debut authors do: it way too wordy. All of the words the author used were absolutely beautiful, his word choice is impeccable and so thoughtful, but as a reader it became overwhelming very fast. It became exhausting having to look up a definition for a word for every page that I read.
This book is set in modern times, but I hardly see the purpose of this. It was interesting for sure, but it was hardly used, the detail felt unsettling and extraneous, I forgot it all the time because the writing is so eloquent and I was comparing it to what I knew of the Bible while I read. I would be feeling finally anchored in the story when out of nowhere an element of modern times would be introduced and throw me off completely. There is also no timeline in this book. After all, everyone knows how the story will end. But the jumping around while also flipping between poetry and prose and narrative and quotes was so disorienting. Reading a singular page was great, but trying to read each page in relation to the whole story was exhausting. And this book is 400 pages long. In my opinion, I could've finished reading it halfway through and still gotten the same experience.
I so wanted to love this. The writing is beautiful. The subject is right up my alley. I mean, gay Jesus? Come on. I bought this book the day I saw it. The execution just didn't do it for me. All the parts by themselves sound so cool: modern setting, weird genre-bending narrative, poetic writing, sign me up. But when it was all put together I ended up not enjoying it.
My favorite passage:
"I remembered her holding your broken body, stretched out like a linebacker atop her buckling frame, as though the force of your mass would push through her and pierce like a lance to the nickel core of the earth.
Then she looked out the window, into a black night, in the space where the garden should be and wasn't
'He was a miracle. I never needed him to be anything else.'
And in teacup silence and night like a blanket her needlework and our wounds stitched themselves by inches."
You cannot binge this book, it is too repetitive. I enjoyed this more the more I put it down and picked it back up as I was then refreshed with the writing style and story. I tried to read this for several hours and quickly got bored. The writing is repetitive, and the main voice seems to do nothing but go on and on about how great Jesus was. The language is beautiful until it gets to be too much, kind of like a really rich chocolate cake. That being said, this book was difficult to stop reading because line spacing made "just one more page" so easy.
I also felt like I didn't know the main character at all. The only thing I know about him is he's loyal and in love with Jesus and a bottom. That's all I got. And it got so so tiring to hear him gush about Jesus over and over and over. Like all the time. The parts where he talked about his faults were probably my favorites. And it went on for 400 pages.
I know the major stories of the Bible quite well, but I feel like this book was written for readers who knew the Bible much more fluently than I. You can tell there are little references and details all throughout this book that totally went over my head because I didn't know the Bible completely, which I'm disappointed about. It could be that I just wasn't the target audience.
The one thing I absolutely loved about this book: the way it portrayed the realness of teenage boys. This book was horny, it smelled like b.o. sometimes, there was stubble and acne and teasing and cursing and tenderness in a way that made the boys so, so alive. I have read many books in which the realities of girlhood were written like this, but this was the first which did the same for boys.
This book fell into a trap I feel a lot of debut authors do: it way too wordy. All of the words the author used were absolutely beautiful, his word choice is impeccable and so thoughtful, but as a reader it became overwhelming very fast. It became exhausting having to look up a definition for a word for every page that I read.
This book is set in modern times, but I hardly see the purpose of this. It was interesting for sure, but it was hardly used, the detail felt unsettling and extraneous, I forgot it all the time because the writing is so eloquent and I was comparing it to what I knew of the Bible while I read. I would be feeling finally anchored in the story when out of nowhere an element of modern times would be introduced and throw me off completely. There is also no timeline in this book. After all, everyone knows how the story will end. But the jumping around while also flipping between poetry and prose and narrative and quotes was so disorienting. Reading a singular page was great, but trying to read each page in relation to the whole story was exhausting. And this book is 400 pages long. In my opinion, I could've finished reading it halfway through and still gotten the same experience.
I so wanted to love this. The writing is beautiful. The subject is right up my alley. I mean, gay Jesus? Come on. I bought this book the day I saw it. The execution just didn't do it for me. All the parts by themselves sound so cool: modern setting, weird genre-bending narrative, poetic writing, sign me up. But when it was all put together I ended up not enjoying it.
My favorite passage:
"I remembered her holding your broken body, stretched out like a linebacker atop her buckling frame, as though the force of your mass would push through her and pierce like a lance to the nickel core of the earth.
Then she looked out the window, into a black night, in the space where the garden should be and wasn't
'He was a miracle. I never needed him to be anything else.'
And in teacup silence and night like a blanket her needlework and our wounds stitched themselves by inches."
April 5, 2024
Holy shit my catholic upbringing has been SLAUGHTERED LMFAO I cannot believe what has transpired in here on this day.
I somehow had zero concept of what was going on during some parts but also completely understood this entire thing to my core?? The blasphemy is so delicious. I read this in about 4 hours and probably have to read it again tomorrow. Also page 235 was the best page in the entire book. And page 240 had my jaw on the actual floor. Also I knew that Mary was an ally.
No but seriously what the hell is going on here
I somehow had zero concept of what was going on during some parts but also completely understood this entire thing to my core?? The blasphemy is so delicious. I read this in about 4 hours and probably have to read it again tomorrow. Also page 235 was the best page in the entire book. And page 240 had my jaw on the actual floor. Also I knew that Mary was an ally.
No but seriously what the hell is going on here
October 11, 2024
The single most ambitious work I've read this year (so far, but I don't expect this changing.) A singular, scholarly, mesmerising book. A metafictional gesamtkunstwerk.
I don't possess either the knowledge or experience to capture the sheer breadth Oliveira has laid into Dayspring, re-contextualizing and collaging cannon and critique and hagiography into a sublime free verse exploration/exaltation of queer love and pain and community and grief and God.
Christ — ineffably human and ineffable God both, walking the earth in a too-short T-shirt, ever-wise and clueless boyfriend extraordinaire — and John the Beloved are imagined as lovers, narrative collapsing time, interweaving past and present. In prose-that-is-poetry-that-is-the-word-that-is-holy-spirit-that-is-not-prose, Anthony Oliveira catches, crystalline, the ravenous yearning of sexual desire and its muddled kinship to all experience that dwells at the horizons of transcendence, all things profane and sacred co-mingling long before and long after Bernini carved Saint Teresa's O face in the marble.
. . .
It is by turns profound and clever - and blisteringly funny. I cackled like a madman at a passage throwing shade at the Gospel of Matthew's penchant for prophecy appropriation, and immediately went to read it aloud for my partner, which I failed at, the first time, due to still helplessly giggling like an agaric-addled woods-witch. (They, too, found it very amusing.)
Dayspring is also a thing with a flaming sword poised to defend the gates of Eden, an activism of affirmation. Oliveira studiously rubricates a Saviour whose gospel was one of radical change, of abnegation and defiance, of and for all the wretched of the world:
... To love is, inevitably, to also offer yourself up to pain - the paralysing possibility and crippling sorrow of loss. To bury and to know you will be buried, not there to offer comfort, to be left and to be leaving, parallel existence turned to a knife that can – that will – cut both ways. And to love is to accept that, because it's worth it, because the interim is joy even when it isn't. Felix Gonzalez-Torres's Perfect Lovers run out of sync with each other. One will stop first. No matter; they tell their own time.
I don't possess either the knowledge or experience to capture the sheer breadth Oliveira has laid into Dayspring, re-contextualizing and collaging cannon and critique and hagiography into a sublime free verse exploration/exaltation of queer love and pain and community and grief and God.
Christ — ineffably human and ineffable God both, walking the earth in a too-short T-shirt, ever-wise and clueless boyfriend extraordinaire — and John the Beloved are imagined as lovers, narrative collapsing time, interweaving past and present. In prose-that-is-poetry-that-is-the-word-that-is-holy-spirit-that-is-not-prose, Anthony Oliveira catches, crystalline, the ravenous yearning of sexual desire and its muddled kinship to all experience that dwells at the horizons of transcendence, all things profane and sacred co-mingling long before and long after Bernini carved Saint Teresa's O face in the marble.
filthy water shall purify when it has flowed through all the earth like a
whore
. . .
the body is never the index of sin
aesthetics are never ethics
and illness is never iniquity
defilement is something you do
not ingest
It is by turns profound and clever - and blisteringly funny. I cackled like a madman at a passage throwing shade at the Gospel of Matthew's penchant for prophecy appropriation, and immediately went to read it aloud for my partner, which I failed at, the first time, due to still helplessly giggling like an agaric-addled woods-witch. (They, too, found it very amusing.)
Dayspring is also a thing with a flaming sword poised to defend the gates of Eden, an activism of affirmation. Oliveira studiously rubricates a Saviour whose gospel was one of radical change, of abnegation and defiance, of and for all the wretched of the world:
it matters that the powers of the state killed him. that by the lights of law and loyalty they were right to do so. he spoke against empire and capital and capitulation. the things they said he said he said the things they said he did he did. he came to break apart their world; you would have killed him too
the master died a traitor
and a terrorist
take up your cross
and follow fast behind him
... To love is, inevitably, to also offer yourself up to pain - the paralysing possibility and crippling sorrow of loss. To bury and to know you will be buried, not there to offer comfort, to be left and to be leaving, parallel existence turned to a knife that can – that will – cut both ways. And to love is to accept that, because it's worth it, because the interim is joy even when it isn't. Felix Gonzalez-Torres's Perfect Lovers run out of sync with each other. One will stop first. No matter; they tell their own time.
it's only death that's all
what is that to love
May 13, 2024
“it’s never going to be the happy ending you want/you know that”
*lady gaga voice* stunning. sacred. profane. holy. poetic. horny. violent.
—
what’s up, sinners? this book rocked my shit and i haven’t been the same since so now it’s everyone’s problem.
‘dayspring’ brings to life the gospel of john the evangelist (canonically the disciple whom christ loved) in a way that evokes passion, love, grief, anger, betrayal, and the depth of destruction of god and of man. through john’s point of view, we are invited in to the intense connection he has with jesus and how he grapples with the reality of loving christ and being by his side in the days leading to the crucifixion.
‘dayspring’ turns genre on its head and allows the reader to sink into pure feeling. it is poetry and prose and a scrapbook of poems and theological writings over time. it had me brushing off the dust on the long ago forgotten catholic school teachings to try and see it all in a new light. to remember names and stories and rearrange them to see oliveira’s vision to come to life.
i’ll be honest and say that this one isn’t for everyone but it /is/ for me.
this one is for my queer religious trauma girlies.
it’s for the ones who had to read bible verses or gospel stories in sunday school and thought ‘this sounds a little gay.’ it’s for the girlies who suffered through monotone sermons and sore knees and unrelenting shame and wondering if they could smell it on you.
and for the ones who looked up at the crucifixion during mass and thought ‘is jesus hot?’
tbh the author tweeted that it’s like “being gay and getting fucked in the butt by god but like in a god-honouring way” and i said SAY LESS, then bought it immediately.
so, like, grab a rosary baby and start praying.
—
“and the word became flesh/coarse hair/crooked smile/the taste of salt on his clavicle
i am the disciple whom he loved”
✨✨✨
“i have loved you more than i have loved anything. you can't forget”
wowwowowow ok ok rtc
*lady gaga voice* stunning. sacred. profane. holy. poetic. horny. violent.
—
what’s up, sinners? this book rocked my shit and i haven’t been the same since so now it’s everyone’s problem.
‘dayspring’ brings to life the gospel of john the evangelist (canonically the disciple whom christ loved) in a way that evokes passion, love, grief, anger, betrayal, and the depth of destruction of god and of man. through john’s point of view, we are invited in to the intense connection he has with jesus and how he grapples with the reality of loving christ and being by his side in the days leading to the crucifixion.
‘dayspring’ turns genre on its head and allows the reader to sink into pure feeling. it is poetry and prose and a scrapbook of poems and theological writings over time. it had me brushing off the dust on the long ago forgotten catholic school teachings to try and see it all in a new light. to remember names and stories and rearrange them to see oliveira’s vision to come to life.
i’ll be honest and say that this one isn’t for everyone but it /is/ for me.
this one is for my queer religious trauma girlies.
it’s for the ones who had to read bible verses or gospel stories in sunday school and thought ‘this sounds a little gay.’ it’s for the girlies who suffered through monotone sermons and sore knees and unrelenting shame and wondering if they could smell it on you.
and for the ones who looked up at the crucifixion during mass and thought ‘is jesus hot?’
tbh the author tweeted that it’s like “being gay and getting fucked in the butt by god but like in a god-honouring way” and i said SAY LESS, then bought it immediately.
so, like, grab a rosary baby and start praying.
—
“and the word became flesh/coarse hair/crooked smile/the taste of salt on his clavicle
i am the disciple whom he loved”
✨✨✨
“i have loved you more than i have loved anything. you can't forget”
wowwowowow ok ok rtc
May 23, 2024
i need to sit with this for a while
April 7, 2025
If this was the Bible, I’d be a Christian.
Want to read
October 10, 2024ˋ°•*⁀➷
pre read
: this is for the girlies who read the bible in the bathtub
April 20, 2024
"and the word became flesh: coarse hair, crooked smile, the taste of salt on his clavicle. i am the disciple whom he loved."
merging biblical retellings with a contemporary, queer coming-of-age tale, dayspring is a breathtaking novel that acts as a testament to the omnipresent nature of love. with otherworldly prose woven with historical christian thought and soaked in biblical language, anthony oliveira has written the gospel that i always longed for.
gorgeous, erotic, hopeful, kind, and quietly barreling toward the inevitable, heartbreaking sacrifice that lays bare what it means to leave those you've loved behind, dayspring is a genuinely unforgettable book that i'll be thinking about for a very long time. tears found my eyes and oliveira's work held up a mirror so that i could see myself in a new, brilliant light. what a fucking gift it is to be loved.
(if you're an audiobook person, there's hardly one out there that i can recommend more than this one—it's absolutely phenomenal.)
merging biblical retellings with a contemporary, queer coming-of-age tale, dayspring is a breathtaking novel that acts as a testament to the omnipresent nature of love. with otherworldly prose woven with historical christian thought and soaked in biblical language, anthony oliveira has written the gospel that i always longed for.
gorgeous, erotic, hopeful, kind, and quietly barreling toward the inevitable, heartbreaking sacrifice that lays bare what it means to leave those you've loved behind, dayspring is a genuinely unforgettable book that i'll be thinking about for a very long time. tears found my eyes and oliveira's work held up a mirror so that i could see myself in a new, brilliant light. what a fucking gift it is to be loved.
(if you're an audiobook person, there's hardly one out there that i can recommend more than this one—it's absolutely phenomenal.)
July 6, 2024
hmmmmmmm kind of a frustrating book to read, review, and rate ngl
i (mostly) really enjoyed this!! there were times when i was LOVING IT and then times when it made me question if i knew how to read? so a three i guess?
to be fair to this book!! it's not a book for someone like me who doesn't have experience with religion, doesn't have an interest in religion, has never even touched a christian bible, and has nothing but utter disdain for it. catholic trauma is just not something one can appropriate!
i loved the more human, everyday life kind of stuff in here. loved the themes and poems about how queer love and queer sex and being queer is the closest thing to being holy. REALLY loved all of that. but i did not care for the bible retellings, or the poetry/quotes by christian authors of the past!
mostly this book just made me feel dumb bc i had no clue what was happening or what some of the poems were saying. it reminded me of this is how you lose the time war, another book that is very beautiful and well made and beloved by everyone, but one that i just did not UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS HAPPENING I'M WAY TO STUPID FOR THIS.
that being said, i kind of want to buy this and reread it physically because maybe i would like it more then?
i (mostly) really enjoyed this!! there were times when i was LOVING IT and then times when it made me question if i knew how to read? so a three i guess?
to be fair to this book!! it's not a book for someone like me who doesn't have experience with religion, doesn't have an interest in religion, has never even touched a christian bible, and has nothing but utter disdain for it. catholic trauma is just not something one can appropriate!
i loved the more human, everyday life kind of stuff in here. loved the themes and poems about how queer love and queer sex and being queer is the closest thing to being holy. REALLY loved all of that. but i did not care for the bible retellings, or the poetry/quotes by christian authors of the past!
mostly this book just made me feel dumb bc i had no clue what was happening or what some of the poems were saying. it reminded me of this is how you lose the time war, another book that is very beautiful and well made and beloved by everyone, but one that i just did not UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS HAPPENING I'M WAY TO STUPID FOR THIS.
that being said, i kind of want to buy this and reread it physically because maybe i would like it more then?
June 3, 2024
'i am with you always
til the age's end
it's you and me handsome
only love
as i have loved you'
and you were gone
like a fist when you open your hand
--
if the love and passion is not as all consuming as this then i don't want it. anyway, thank you, anthony oliveira, for writing the book that feeds my favorite jesus christ headcanon: That jesus was so incredibly loving and fruity. loving a god who is doomed to die is its own hell, huh.
til the age's end
it's you and me handsome
only love
as i have loved you'
and you were gone
like a fist when you open your hand
--
if the love and passion is not as all consuming as this then i don't want it. anyway, thank you, anthony oliveira, for writing the book that feeds my favorite jesus christ headcanon: That jesus was so incredibly loving and fruity. loving a god who is doomed to die is its own hell, huh.
May 1, 2025
I can't seem to organise my thoughts on this one, so I've given up trying. here are my disorganised thoughts:
1) I've seen a lot of people describe this book as blasphemous and profane and I just do not agree with that - even with the people who meant it in a good, cunty, yes gwad way. This book REVERES Christ. if you think that even the implication of queerness desecrates then that's a you thing. (to be clear, this book does more than implicate. to quote the author it's about 'getting fucked in the butt by god but like in a god-honouring way', which is accurate. underselling it, even, I would say!)
2) I've been thinking a lot about The Nicene Creed (whole new sentence for me), which officially declared Jesus divine in 300ishAD. Dayspring is one of the only things I've come across that humanises Jesus in a sweaty, stinky, irritated, regular person way, rather than a 'he was sad in the Garden of Gethsemane :(' way, and it felt groundbreaking to read. Jesus Christ: just some guy. I'm going through it. let's not linger.
3) finally: lots of reviews from people saying they missed some of the nuances and references cos their Biblical knowledge is lacking, and I thought I'd feel the same, but passages of this book wrenched open unseen doors to 1998 in my brain and memories of my Catholic primary school education came screaming back to me in full technicolour, so. that was cool!
(also staggering to find out I have opinions on the portrayal of Judas Iscariot and the Magdalene (not my favourite in this book). my 2025 Year In Books is gonna be a ride.)
1) I've seen a lot of people describe this book as blasphemous and profane and I just do not agree with that - even with the people who meant it in a good, cunty, yes gwad way. This book REVERES Christ. if you think that even the implication of queerness desecrates then that's a you thing. (to be clear, this book does more than implicate. to quote the author it's about 'getting fucked in the butt by god but like in a god-honouring way', which is accurate. underselling it, even, I would say!)
2) I've been thinking a lot about The Nicene Creed (whole new sentence for me), which officially declared Jesus divine in 300ishAD. Dayspring is one of the only things I've come across that humanises Jesus in a sweaty, stinky, irritated, regular person way, rather than a 'he was sad in the Garden of Gethsemane :(' way, and it felt groundbreaking to read. Jesus Christ: just some guy. I'm going through it. let's not linger.
3) finally: lots of reviews from people saying they missed some of the nuances and references cos their Biblical knowledge is lacking, and I thought I'd feel the same, but passages of this book wrenched open unseen doors to 1998 in my brain and memories of my Catholic primary school education came screaming back to me in full technicolour, so. that was cool!
(also staggering to find out I have opinions on the portrayal of Judas Iscariot and the Magdalene (not my favourite in this book). my 2025 Year In Books is gonna be a ride.)
September 27, 2024
approaching dayspring as someone who wasn't raised christian, i feel like i missed out on a lot of the nuances and could have had (but simply couldn't, for lack of knowledge) a deeper connection with the text. but even with that being said, i feel like this beautiful book is long overdue, an impressive feat, and could literally!!! save lives. it's incredible just on its own as a work of poetry. and it is the closest thing to anne carson i've ever read... which i don't say lightly!
so, to anyone that needs it, this book is deeply for you, and you know who you are.
so, to anyone that needs it, this book is deeply for you, and you know who you are.
Read
April 14, 2024DNF @ p. 72. Just not for me - the free verse is not generally my style and tbh as someone queer and raised Catholic, like…. I don’t need to read about it, I know this whole vibe already. I like it! I recommend to others! But you’re preaching to the choir, bud.
November 14, 2024
The ending brought tears to my eyes.
This is one of the most sensuous books I've ever read. Several passages were soaringly beautiful and quite moving. Please see my numerous highlights (although they're unfortunately stripped of the intended formatting which I think is important. GR doesn't retain the formatting.).
At the same time, I found reading this to be quite difficult due to the form or structure. The entire book is like a poem with creative line breaks and formatting (not sure what the word is). Sometimes things are right aligned, others left. I could only read for brief periods or by taking lots of rest breaks. I couldn't easily grasp a narrative structure although there is a structure. It was hard to ingest and process or follow. Often I had to let go of understanding what was going on or the purpose of some sections.
The book has a loving spiritual (very Catholic) tone. And it's radical: Jesus is gay and has sex with the male narrator. And the time setting is quasi-contemporary.
I appreciated reading something that breaks the mold with its radical subject matter and presentation. It's a gorgeous book...just requires a very different reading experience to comprehend and appreciate.
This is one of the most sensuous books I've ever read. Several passages were soaringly beautiful and quite moving. Please see my numerous highlights (although they're unfortunately stripped of the intended formatting which I think is important. GR doesn't retain the formatting.).
At the same time, I found reading this to be quite difficult due to the form or structure. The entire book is like a poem with creative line breaks and formatting (not sure what the word is). Sometimes things are right aligned, others left. I could only read for brief periods or by taking lots of rest breaks. I couldn't easily grasp a narrative structure although there is a structure. It was hard to ingest and process or follow. Often I had to let go of understanding what was going on or the purpose of some sections.
The book has a loving spiritual (very Catholic) tone. And it's radical: Jesus is gay and has sex with the male narrator. And the time setting is quasi-contemporary.
I appreciated reading something that breaks the mold with its radical subject matter and presentation. It's a gorgeous book...just requires a very different reading experience to comprehend and appreciate.
Want to read
March 5, 2024i always knew jesus boys were fruity. vindication!!
Want to read
June 4, 2024seriously considering buying this book (i do not need more books i have too many to read but its gay month)
June 21, 2024
this was stunning. I suggest reading it along with the audiobook
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