Publisher's Synopsis
For more than twenty years, Answered Prayers was talked about so much, and it aroused so much expectation that it was rightly called the "most famous unpublished novel in North American literature." The protagonist of the novel - witty, charming, bisexual, absolutely amoral - managed to escape from an orphanage at the age of thirteen, learned the trade of masseuse and managed to become a modern rogue, a task he performed with undoubted effectiveness. The modern rogue, of course, can only survive if he knows how to rub shoulders with the rich and famous, sometimes occupying the role of confidant, other times that of jester and, for the readers of this novel, that of hilarious chronicler of the crazy lives of the jet-set. Through these pages parade - along with thinly disguised portraits of writers like Tennessee Williams, actresses like Greta Garbo or millionaires like Stavros Niarchos - real characters, such as the ineffable Mrs. Matthau and Mrs. Cooper, whose dialogues about life and customs (preferably sexual relations) of other members of high society are reproduced with cruel fidelity.
