This powerful new novel from the author of Saint Peter's Wolfis the exceptionally well told story of how the need for salvation can, through fear, be used to manipulate belief for terrifying ends.Red Patterson has done for psychiatry what television evangelists have done for religion. Charismatic, brilliant, Patterson is torn between his desire to heal and his ruthless need to control. His controversial television career encounters its greatest challenge in contemporary artist Curtis Newns.Newns is a famous, gifted painter shattered by the loss of his masterpiece, Skyscape, and unable to create new art. Patterson agrees to help Curtis, and the novel flowers into a struggle between Margaret, the woman who loves the artist, and the powerful, seductive television celebrity.Margaret's strength springs from both love and intelligence, but she is entangled in society's collective surrender to the power of today's mass media. Set largely in San Francisco and the California desert, this is the story of love pitted against the corruption of our individual will by the Red Pattersons of our time
