On the Road with the Archangel is the thirteenth novel by the American author and theologian, Frederick Buechner. The novel was first published in 1997 by Harper, San Francisco.
Plot summary
Privy to the lives of all humans, whose prayers he carries from their mouths into the presence of God, the Archangel Raphael enters into the worlds of two insignificant households: the family of Tobit, and the family of Raguel.
The ageing Tobit and his wife Anna, who have been exiled in Nineveh, are almost overwhelmed by the turns that their life together has taken. Tasked with oversight of a commercial enterprise owned by the King of Assyria, Sargon II, Tobit is able to provide a comfortable life for his family. Not content to lie low in this foreign and dangerous land, however, the merchant makes the life of his family precarious by his nightly activities. When the King and his murderous son, Sennacherib, leave the corpses of Jews out in the streets or on refuse tips, Tobit rescues the bodies and facilitates a proper burial. Returning from one such nocturnal mission, Tobit falls asleep in his own courtyard. While he is sleeping a sparrow defecates on his face, and when he wakes it is to find that he is blind. Where he once saved the bodies of his fellow Jews and gave the poor among them money, now Tobit is reduced to a life of angry passivity, while his exasperated wife is forced to take up sewing for prosperous families of the neighbourhood.
The lives of Raguel, his wife, Edna, and his daughter, Sarah, are no less unfortunate. Afraid of arranged marriage and the ‘embrace of a virtual stranger’, the beautiful young Sarah has made a Faust-like pact with a demon named Asmodeus. Edna’s zeal to have her daughter married ensures that she is approached by many men, all of whom desire her hand. Each new husband is found dead in the morning, and, by the time the number has risen to seven, she is suicidal with regret. Ecbatana, their hometown, is filled with suspicious chatter, and Sarah’s reputation, and with it the reputation of her family, has been shattered. Her prayer to the Almighty that he might end her life coincides with Tobit’s prayer that God might do the same, and it is Raphael who carries their morbid requests into the presence of God.
Convinced that God will answer his macabre prayer, Tobit begins preparations for an imminent death. Chief among those he must make ready for this eventuality is his son, Tobias, who has ‘always been somewhat slower to understand things than most people’. For the preservation of the household, Tobit insists that his son must set out on a journey to the home of an old friend, Gabael, in far-off Media, with whom the crafty old merchant has hidden two sacks of silver. As Tobias sets out on the road he is met by a stranger, Azarias, who is mysteriously well acquainted with both with Media and Gabael. Unbeknown to Tobias, his new companion is the Archangel Raphael, who has taken it upon himself to step down into the material world in order to bring about a reversal in fortune for this beleaguered family.
Before long, the disguised archangel realises the wisdom of his decision to join Tobias. While Azarias fishes in the Tigris for their supper one evening, his naïve companion, who has taken to swimming in the deep water, becomes embroiled in a life and death struggle with a large fish. Following the fight, in which Tobias himself is nearly killed, Azarias directs him to remove the innards from the great fish, and stow them away in a bag, claiming that they might have some future use. As the two travellers enter Ecbatana, Azarias informs Tobias of his plan to see the young man married to Sarah, the beautiful daughter of a friend of his named Raguel. Despite his initial fear of the proposition, having heard tale of Sarah and her husbands, Tobias agrees to enter into the marriage contract. Azarias’s suggestion that the bridegroom burn some of the fish entrails before heading into the bridal chamber results in the final defeat of Asmodeus, who is overpowered by the smoke and sent fleeing from the scene. The family rejoice in the morning when they find the newlyweds alive and happy.