Author:John Updike,John Banville
Middle-aged, brilliant and bored, Roger Lambert is a professor of Divinity at a New England university. Firmly convinced that religious belief can only justified by recourse to pure faith, he is dismissive when visited by a gangling student who claims, with evangelical zeal, that computer technology is on the brink of proving the existence of God. But when his unhappy wife flings herself into an affair with the younger man, and Roger's faith in his own placid life is thrown into question. With his marriage close to collapse, he finds himself increasingly drawn to his own half-niece, the nineteen-year-old Verna, in this cunning and comic exploration of religion, uncertainty and passion.
A work of formidable imaginative scope ... the writing is so good, the language so surprisingly subtle and the characters so beautifully delineated
—— Daily TelegraphRiveting action scenes bristle with a queasy energy ... unputdownable and disgustingly realistic
—— Sunday TelegraphElton writes a good crime story with lots of twists and excitement
—— Henry Sutton , Daily MirrorUnusually for a comic novel, it grips like a thriller and has some page-turningly tense moments... a significant book, as well as an eccentric one
—— Daily TelegraphA reading experience that evokes contemporary China with absurdist exactitude
—— Financial TimesSome of the best passages are, like this, sensuous and plainly descriptive. There is a fantastic mini-essay on the aphrodisiac qualities of the sea cucumber
—— Toby Litt , GuardianWell-crafted, often hilarious and surreal
—— Big IssueAn amusing, charming read with a satirical edge
—— Metro
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