Evoking such classics as Elmer Gantry and The Day of the Locust,
William Giraldi's About Face boldly transfers the perennial literary
themes of celebrity, ambition, and obsession to twenty-first-century
Boston. There we meet Val Face, a charismatic self-help guru who
captivates multitudes with his uncanny ability to heal adherents using
only the power of his words, the mysterious touch of his hands, and the
transcendent beauty of his face.
Assigned to write a profile of Val Face during his much-hyped New
England tour, thirty-year-old impoverished journalist Seger Jovi pens a
brutal hatchet job. But Seger, at once curious and incredulous, is soon
sucked into the mystic's vortex of fame, becoming a devotee himself as
he contends with the machinations and absurdities of Face's many
protectors, from beefcake bodyguards to helicoptering handlers to Face's
unwavering spouse, Nimble. At first unwilling to sacrifice his
principles to fulfill his own ambition and rise from privation, then
touched by Face's unexpected humanity, Seger oscillates between acting
as Face's cynical foil and becoming his unlikely ally.
Just as the exalted guru appears to be reaching the apex of his powers,
danger threatens from the periphery in the form of an obsessive stalker
who wants Face dead. To curb this stalker before he can do harm, Face's
security team enlists the aid of Jackie Jaworski, an ex-Marine and
resourceful Boston detective who moonlights as a novelist of thrillers.
And so About Face, building to a denouement that will astonish
readers, takes us into the convergence of violence and fame that has
come to define so much of American popular culture over the last
half-century.
With its indelible array of characters, hypnotic pacing, and shocking
conclusion--and "a mesmerizing prose style that is downright pyrotechnic
in its brilliance" (Andre Dubus III)--About Face is a novel in the
grand tradition that dances along the tenuous line between the sacred
and the profane.
