In this powerful novel that will confirm his reputation as one of Britain's brightest literary lights, A.N. Wilson recounts the downward spiral of Francis Kreer, a clergyman who has stopped believing in God and whose marriage has begun to come apart at the seams. When his mother dies, Francis is shocked to discover that she had a lover and that he must share his inheritance with this odious man. Then Francis falls in love--painfully, absolutely--with an irresistible but most unsuitable young woman. Wilson traces Francis's descent through various circles of the English establishment and counterculture, a tragi-comic journey that takes the hero to the outer edges of both absurdity and despair.