In a monastery by the Ganges, a tense, tortured, puritanical young T. E. Lawrence-type, of the kind produced only at the best British schools, is at the end of a spiritual pilgrimage: He is about to take sannyas, his final vows, and become a Hindu monk. But has Oliver punished himself enough? Shouldn’t there be some extra, ultimate test? Why, yes! He could let his meddlesome, flamboyant, homosexual brother Patrick in on the secret, and discover whether the newly won Vedantic faith can tolerate exposure to his past.
Patrick the satyr arrives hot-foot from Los Angeles, where he has been making movies and copulating in the foam of Californian beaches. He quickly stirs up an emotional storm. But Oliver, too, knows a few psychological tricks. With aggressive humility, he gives plump Patrick the Vedantic works, until the “enlightened” liberal mocker begins to be uncomfortably aware of the dissatisfactions that plague us all in the brave old world of materialism. Who will win? Will Olly find God? Will God, instead, zap Patrick into a state of grace?
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