Blinding light (Broché)

Slade Steadman is the ultimate one-book wonder. His lone opus, published twenty years ago, was Trespassing, a cult classic about his travels through dozens of countries, slipping across national frontiers without the benefit of a passport. With his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, Ava, in tow, he sets out for Ecuador's easternmost jungle in search of a rare hallucinogenic drug and what he hopes to be the cure to his writer's block. On a drug tour with a gang of thrill-seeking tourists, Steadman finds his drug and his inspiration, but back home on Martha's Vineyard he is beset with an unnerving side effect - periodic blindness. His world is altered profoundly ; Ava stays by his side, he pens an erotic, autobiographical novel with the drug serving as Muse, and he returns to stardom, now as a Blind Writer. He becomes addicted to the drug and the insights it provides, only to have them desert him, along with his sight. Will he regain his vision ? His visions ? Or will he forgo the world of his imagining, and his ambition ? As Theroux leads us towards the answers, he makes fresh magic out of the venerable intertwined themes of sight and insight. He also offers incisive, sometimes hilarious takes on the manifold ironies of travel and the trappings of the writer's life - from the fear of the blank page to the unexpected challenges of the book tour.