The London critics have praised this novel highly, and one has claimed that it is Prawer Jhabvala's best since Heat and Dust. Instead of the usual Indian setting, it has an American background, though one of the characters is in fact an Indian poet whose wife leaves him. The plot is woven around the cult of a "Master" who sounds faintly like Krishnamurti, and the efforts of his odd followers to spread his message, particularly after his death. Most of the characters are hard to take to, but then perhaps that was the author's intention anyway, and it is all very smoothly and deftly told.