Happy Birthday Jesus

There are many reasons offered trying to explain why people commit crimes, particularly those of particular savagery. Sometimes, there is in fact a physical reason, such as the brain tumor that drove Charles Whitman and his guns into the University of Texas tower in 1966. Abused children, studies say, often grow up to be violent, abusive adults. Innate tendencies-an inborn inability to empathize with other. Social immaturity-emotional ten-year-olds in adult bodies.In his fictional biography of a young man growing up in the early years of the 20th century to become a vicious killer, Ronald L. Ruiz doesn't posit any theories. Rather, he takes us into Jesus's world and lets us ponder for ourselves which factors in his life, had they been changed, might have prevented his plunge into darkness.Orphaned as a toddler, Jesus is raised by his fanatically religious grandmother, his mother's mother, a woman who years for sainthood. She detests him, based on an ironic internecine bigotry that equates particular physical characteristics such as lighter complexion with superiority. There are other dynamics involved, of course, including her daughter's choice of a husband she deemed unsuitable. Her rage and contempt are expressed in physical and emotionally abusive punishment, including forcing the boy to lie in a "crib" for hours clad only in a diaper.Stirred into this stew is religion: the tenets of a church with shepherds who depend on guilt and terror to keep the sheep in line. The endless sermons on sin and its eternal consequences, poured into the mind of a child already convinced of his unworthiness, lead Jesus to decide nothing he does really matters since he is already condemned.In any case, the young Jesus grows up confronted by daily, unremitting oppression, a kind of Chinese water torture of humiliation, prejudice and contempt that fills him with seething rage. Eventually, that rage explodes in a moment of vicious violence, and sets him on a path from which there is really no escape.Mr. Ruiz presents his protagonist's life with almost scientific detachment, which makes the impact of it all the more vivid. He neither condemns nor seeks sympathy for Jesus, allowing the reader to draw his or her own conclusions as to where-and whether-his descent might have been stopped. There is ample blame to go around in this dark tale of the destruction of a human soul, although a fair share of it must be assumed by a criminal justice system that is more criminal than just.HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS is an unrelenting look into the making of a killer, the history of a soul lost almost from the moment of birth. It is a frightening and at times painfully ironic lesson in the consequences of extremism and neglect and the crippling effects of bigotry no matter what the source. Mr. Ruiz does not ask for sympathy for his damaged protagonist, adding a plot thread that suggests such sympathy is as harmful in its way as the abuse Jesus suffers. This is not a rallying cry for refor

I am as student at UC Berkeley and we just finished reading this book just last week. I immensely enjoyed this book and I cannot stop speaking its praises among my friends. It was taught as an American Cultures class (a requirement for all Letters and Sciences students) and not only did we review all of the thematic elements and social issues that the novel covers, but we also got to meet the author! Ruiz spoke to our class and gave us his basic background and experience as a lawyer here in the Bay Area (he was the DA for a time) and I must admit that I was really impressed and honored that he was a fellow Latino. He has given me even more hope to become a writer.You should pick up this novel wanting to learn not only more about the injustice in the criminal justice system and how it does not serve and rehabilitize those that it needs to, but also to learn how it is that monsters are created. Ruiz told us in his lecture in our class that "Monsters and created, not born, and I am a testament to that". He has defended and prosecuted so many monsters that he should know more than anyone how it is that they came to be in his hands.This will be a book that I will never forget. Its an especially good read in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

Having worked as an attorney for six years out of California's Pelican Bay Prison, I can attest Ruiz' work tells it like it happens. A rare glimpse of the real depravity of prison and the complex make up of the inmates. Evil really does exist.

"Happy Birthday, Jesus" by Ronald Ruiz is a stunning first novel. I read it in 1994 when it was first released and was so deeply moved by Ruiz' power of writing a story with such difficult characters (and for me succeeding on every level) that I found myself touting this little book to all of my friends, giving it as gifts for birthdays and holidays, and fully expecting there to be many more solid novels from this talented new writer. I have re-read the book in the intervening years and continue to be impressed. When I was recently asked to compose a list of books to encourage a budding novelist I first remembered "Happy Birthday, Jesus" - and included it with "Beach Boy", "The God of Small Things", "Snow Falling on Cedars", "Cold Mountain", and "The Fan-Makers Inquisition" - adding "Blindness", "The Reader", and sundry other books that for me capture the readers imagination and make an indelible imprint. This book deserves more attention; I wonder what has happened to this author....

A reader could easily get a quarter of the way into this book, decide it's too graphic in its brutality, put it down and miss a wonderful opportunity. Not only can we non-Latinos see ourselves more clearly. We also see how neglect and misguided authority create the vengeful youth--of any race. As horrid as Jesus becomes, I never lost sympathy for him. That's an awesome accomplishment for a first-time novelist. The parable in this story is deep and valuable for those who persevere. Keep reading...