On the Edge

Peter, a disaffected merchant banker in his mid-thirties, suffers a coup de foudre when he lays eyes on the delectable Sabine, and sets out on a reckless mission to track her down. His search takes him to some of the outposts of New Age culture - the Findhorn Institute, and then to the Esalen Foundation, in North California, where the search for Sabine ends, and he finds something he hadn't been looking for. Eslan is the magnet for other seekers too: Adam Fraser, the charismatic anti-guru guru; Crystal, feeling sorry for herself after her boy-friend Jean-Paul adopts a new life of solitude in the wake of a mescalin trip in Utah; Brooke, the rich patroness of all new religions and causes, with her teacher Kenneth in tow, an advocate of 'Streamism'; and Stan and Karen, in their 70s, open to everything, and embarking on Tantric sex for the first time. Edward St Aubyn's sharp and highly entertaining novel is a hilarious and provocative portrait of the world of New Age therapies, and a wise and witty human comedy.