Lesbian hints pp. Vidal Thanks to a breakthrough in computers, an NBC crew races into the past to capture live the crucifixion, guaranteed to boost ratings. Meanwhile a hacker is trying to destroy the tapes. One tape, that of St. Timothy is saved, and he struggles against dark forces to complete his gospel, including his travels with St. Paul, his date rape with Nero, followed by martyrdom, fire and the big show at Golgotha. The novel focuses on a priest with cancer who is sent to investigate a possible new saint's cult in Southern Italy.
Homosexuality plays a large part in the plot, but West's attitude is condemnatory.
A work of art. Set in a Catholic girls school in the interwar years, it describes the resistence and overcoming of a student by the closed minds and crabbed attitudes thrust on her that nearly kill her soul. The story of a young lesbian being brought up by an outrageously evangelical aunt in postwar Lancashire. Wonderful observant writing from one of the stars of modern British literature. Along with his lover Scott Carpenter, a professional baseball player, Tom plunges into ecclesiastical intrigues, the hidden underground of gay Chicago, and the tragedies caused by a hypocritical church.