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Two short years ago, UK author Susan Howatch hit me like a ton of bricks. An innovative theology professor listed GLITTERING IMAGES --- the first in her absorbing and provocative "Starbridge" sextet about personal scandal and political turbulence in the Church of England --- as primary course reading. Yet no written or oral assignments on it were required. "Howatch will tell you more about our church and human nature than any textbook I could find," she promised, "and you'll enjoy a terrifically good read at the same time."
That insightful Anglican seminary instructor was more than right; she was (dare I say it?) prophetic. Being an inter-city bus commuter, it didn't take me long to crack open that first magnificent exploration of the inner lives of vocationally religious people and escape for miles on end into Howatch's unique world of knowledge and intrigue, set in a semi-rural venue inspired by the actual environs of Salisbury Cathedral.
By the time next term rolled around a few months later, I had wolfed down her five companion "Starbridge" volumes, and only the pressures of increasing coursework in other subjects kept me from continuing on to her next church-related series --- this time set amid the frantic secular intensity of central London's business district. Howatch's latest, THE HEARTBREAKER, is the third of this set, which independently carries on with the lives and loves of characters whose roots (and often, salacious secrets) are still anchored in not-so-fictional Starbridge.
Right off the top, I have to award Howatch full marks in THE HEARTBREAKER for courage, factual insight and sensitivity, as she probes the tortuously complex lives of high-stakes urban sex trade professionals (the British euphemism is "leisure workers") and their ruthless managers.
As with most of her novels, this story is told in the alternating first-person voices of two or more principal characters. And here, two is almost more than enough, for both Gavin (a pampered male prostitute) and sisterly Carta (who has just found Jesus and wants to help everyone) lead lives with enough convolutions to keep half-a-dozen people on the go.
Among those in the vocational "helping professions" (clergy, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and the like), spiritual healing is often compared to a long journey, one that begins before the traveler is even aware of his or her own internal cries for help. Amid the changes, challenges, betrayals and well-intentioned emotional blunderings of both Gavin and Carta, Howatch offers the reader a poignant and suspenseful fly-on-the-wall overview. She convincingly describes how the dedicated (and often voluntary) specialists in real parish healing centres patiently work to draw troubled people out of their emotional and spiritual entrapment and to face traumatic lifestyle changes upon which their very survival depends. Some don't make it, and Howatch pulls no punches in bringing us to a stark realization that her models are only too prevalent in today's society. (But don't worry...THE HEARTBREAKER'S ending is typically joyous and forward-looking.)
As with her previous titles, Howatch uses a vast knowledge of the Church of England (Anglican to Canadians, Episcopal to Americans) without a trace of self-indulgent pedantry or egoistic preaching. Her deeply layered characters are truly free to tell their own stories without tangential interference from an author who is so clever and passionate, she almost disappears.
The HEARTBREAKER leaves no doubt that Susan Howatch continues at the top of her form. It's an express train page-turner with the rare cargo of enormous substance, and I look forward to her next offering with almost indecent eagerness.
--- Reviewed by Pauline Finch (paulinefinch@rogers.com)
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