On the Edge

August 18, 2014
New Agers beware! St. Aubyn’s take on the search for enlightenment as a cure for modern malaise is razor sharp and maniacally clever. The novel focuses on a handful of self-proclaimed spiritual evolvers: Adam, the gay guru who frequently changes credos but consistently champions what he thinks is globally significant; Brooke, the embarrassingly rich, needy guru-subsidizer; Kenneth, the shaman of “Streamism,” who is embarrassingly dependent on Brooke; Peter, the English banker who chucks married life to chase after Sabine, the gender-bending sex goddess, only to fall for restless, slightly guilt-ridden, totally available Crystal; an older couple hoping to rejuvenate their love life; plus other assorted fulfillment seekers and would-be providers. Parallel spiritual journeys begin at a San Francisco dinner party and come together at an Esalen tantric workshop. The joy of reading this novel derives not from the story but the storytelling. Fluent in new age techno-babble, with its echoes of Eastern religions, California lifestyles, and millennial egocentrism, St. Aubyn (who satirized the world of literary prizes earlier this year with Lost for Words) flaunts pitiless humor in scenes such as when Sabine’s alter ego Poly attempts to achieve nirvana. After its exhaustive and exhausting catalogue of lofty aspirations, some readers will resent the novel’s descent into a graphically physical climax; others will root for the divinity seekers to find satisfaction, however temporary and however delusional.

September 1, 2014
A breezy, comic novel about New-Age pretensions by an author who has since become renowned for more substantial fiction. Before he received international acclaim with his autobiographical series of Patrick Melrose novels (Mother's Milk, 2005, etc.)-dark, scathingly funny eviscerations of the British upper class-St. Aubyn seemed like a more conventionally comic novelist in this 1998 work, which is receiving belated American publication. It's an engaging satire about people trying to achieve some higher cosmic consciousness while distracted by mundane affairs such as sex and money. "What else was there to do with sex and money except have misunderstandings about them?" says an heiress supporting a writer who doesn't seem to be writing. The most fully fleshed and sympathetic male character, the closest one to a protagonist, is a British banker named Peter, who is even more disillusioned with the course of his life after falling into rapturous lust with and subsequently being forsaken by the libertine Sabine. He doesn't even know her last name, but in this novel it seems that all roads lead to the spiritual Big Sur retreat of Esalen, where Peter falls into a deeply cosmic love with another woman while searching for clues to Sabine and where a dozen or so other characters converge for a tantric workshop that plays out like a British sex farce. The plot involves preop transsexuals, impotence, rock-star aspirations, a campaign to save the whales from AIDS, the potential for group sex with the elderly, and the smugly condescending "anti-guru guru" Adam and his partner, Yves. (Get it?) Much of the New-Age and Esalen context might have seemed dated even when written in the late 1990s, but the novel is really a romantic comedy at heart: "Everybody knew that being 'in love' was a state of temporary insanity, that's why it was so important to make it last as long as possible." Diverting but minor early work from a major novelist.

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September 1, 2014
From the author of the acclaimed Patrick Melrose novels comes this work first published in Britain in 1998. In it, St. Aubyn delves into the attraction that the New Age movement, with all its pretensions and absurdities, has for a motley group of characters. In San Francisco, Brooke is using part of her vast wealth to fund several gurus. Crystal's ongoing search for enlightenment has taken her down a variety of paths. Peter has quit his banking job in England to chase after a woman with whom he spent just three days, following her first to a New Age center in Scotland and then to California. They, along with a British rock star and his girlfriend and a retired couple from Santa Fe, end up at a tantric sex workshop at Esalen on the California coast. Though the novel definitely has a skewering tone, several of the characters manage to find fulfillment. Readers who have enjoyed St. Aubyn's other novels will recognize his laser-like humor and crystalline imagery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)