Facing the Tank

A writer visits a quaint English Cathedral town and discovers its goings-on are stranger than fiction. When Evan J. Kirby, an eminent American expert on heaven and hell, arrives in Barrowcester to do some research, he finds the community in a less than blissful state. There is the bishop sharing his doubts with the confirmation class while his mother feeds marijuana cookies to Evan's landlady to unleash her psychic powers. Then there is Emma lurking in her father's study waiting for love; Dawn sitting naked in a deckchair at midnight waiting for the Devil, and Madeleine seeking refuge from a cardinally inclined Cardinal. When Evan delves into the true origins of the local saint, a macabre and romantic sequence of events begins to unfold. Evan Kirby, an American academic specialising in angelology and demonology, visits the English cathedral city of Barrowcester (pronounced Brewster) to pursue his studies at the cathedrals ancient library. There he finds that the chintzy perfection of the place masks a network of passionate secrets: one woman on the run from the cardinal who impregnated her, another haunted by her feral child, a young man breaking the news to his parents that he isnt gay after all, a careworn son reluctantly consigning his mad mother to a home, a bishop with doubts, and a bishops mother with a serious cannabis cookie habit. Even as supernatural elements seem to conspire to wreck Evans latest undertaking, he finds himself surprised by love. The earthly paradise is revealed to be full of poisoned apples but one after another its inhabitants are offered a taste of sweet redemption. Barrowcester cathedral is in need of general repairs, and the tomb of patron saint Boniface is to be opened and his remains moved. American professor Evan J. Kirby is writing a study of legends of Paradise and his research leads him to this cathedral city where his studies are happily interrupted.