The Heartbreaker
Deftly combining the sacred and the profane—the unmistakable hallmark of her fiction over the past decade—Susan Howatch gives us a spellbinding, suspenseful and psychologically intense new novel. The financial heart of London—the City—is an adrenaline-charged square mile deep in recession in the 1990s, a place where sex is just another commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace. And the City is where the life of Gavin Blake, who sells sex to high flyers, is finally about to unravel. In the center of the City is St. Benet’s, a church that ministers to the casualties of this affluent but amoral society. Carta Graham, the St. Benet’s fundraiser, is at once attracted to Gavin when they meet through a mutual friend, but slowly she realizes that she has entered a relationship far more complex than she could ever have imagined. Gavin is desperate to escape from his world of prostitution, pornography and violence, but as his involvement with Carta and St. Benet’s deepens, the dangers that encircle him escalate until his life itself is on the line. Carta is determined to help him—but will their mysterious journey together be lifesaving or soul-destroying? All she can do is fight her hardest to help Gavin survive. Consistently surprising and powerfully moving, The Heartbreaker is Susan Howatch’s most gripping novel yet.
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Summary: Conclusion of the trilogy of related stories loosely connected to downtown London parish healing center.
Susan Howatch is one of my favorite authors. She is not well known. Her books tend to be a bit melodramatic. And she has two distinct writing periods. Her early period was as a literary fiction author, based in NYC, working on books of historical fiction, usually long family dramas. I have read some, but not all of the books of this period.
The second writing period is after a divorce and after she moved back to England and eventually rediscovered faith. There are nine books in this period that are all narratively linked and should probably be read in order. They play out over about 65 years and involve many characters, but with a similar style and focus on living out or finding Christian faith.
Because this is really the last in a loosely connected series of nine, I am not going to try to relate all of the books together. But in the 7th book, the main character, Carter or Carta, is now the supporting character for the Heartbreaker. As is common in this series, the focus on the ongoing nature of Christian growth and maturity means that there is always more growth that is required. So part of the growth that Carta now needs is to be able to help the main character, Gavin.
Part of what I like about Howatch is that while she is writing about Christianity, she could never be published in the US evangelical world. Gavin is a high-end male prostitute. The sex here is not graphic, but there is sex. And there is a decent amount of language. Howatch is not glossing over the reality of prostitution and pornography; it is not really possible to have a fiction book about a prostitute without getting a bit gritty at times.
This is the last of Howatch's books. At the end of the book, there is an interview with her where she says she is working on another book. But that was 16 years ago, and I assume that there are not any more books coming. This series was very influential in my life. It really moved me to think more clearly about Christianity as discipleship and spiritual formation over time. The early books in this series gave me a category of Spiritual Direction, and I eventually found a spiritual director, and I start my first class to become a spiritual director this weekend.
The Heartbreaker is probably the most traditional ‘Christian fiction' book in the series in that it is really a salvation book. Gavin eventually is saved and finds healing. But his life will not be perfect from that point. You can see the weaknesses and sin of the other mature Christians around him all the time. Christianity is not about perfection or strength, but about weakness, submission to God and the ongoing process of becoming who you were created to be.