The Adorations: A Novel In Double Time

What moves the Archangel Michael to recruit Gustave Termi, a middle-aged professor in modern-day Geneva, into his legions of divine warriors? It's a total mystery to Gustave, who isn't even sure he believes in God, and is certainly no one's idea of a warrior. He tries psychoanalysis to clear up the visions. That doesn’t work, but a chance encounter with journalist Martine Jeanrenaud in the therapist’s waiting room changes his life. Martine, it turns out, has recently published the biography of an early 20th-century Austrian aristocrat, teacher, and mystic, Stefanie von Rothenberg, as unlikely a mystic as Gustave, who not only had steady visits from heaven and hell but equally steady earthly ones from a bizarre but tenacious swain named Adolf Hitler, whom she first met in Linz, Austria, in 1907…. 

 

Martine's book is reproduced in its entirety, and Gustave reads his way through it in chapters that alternate with his narrative in "double time," as each story follows its own time line. 


Meanwhile, Gustave contends in his daily life with intensified interest from the Archangel, unwelcome scrutiny from his employers and other authorities, a growing concern that he's losing his mind, and a feeling that Stefanie's story is becoming his story, too.


About the Author:

Roger Boylan is an American writer with family roots in Ireland and the New York area. Raised in Europe, he attended the University of Ulster and the University of Edinburgh. He lived in New York City for many years, working as a teacher, translator, bartender, and freelance editor. His novel Killoyle, which Publishers Weekly called "a virtuoso performance," is published by Dalkey Archive Press. His second novel, The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad, is published by Grove Press, New York. The Village Voice said it “resembles Joyce at his comically prolix best.” German versions of both novels, translated by the award-winning German translator and author Harry Rowohlt, have been critically and commercially successful. Boylan’s third novel, The Maladjusted Terrorist, was published in Germany as Killoyle Wein und Käse in 2006. In 2007, all three novels were reissued in German by Kein & Aber, Zürich, as a boxed set. In 2012, shortly before his death at age 89, the famous editor Barney Rosset enthusiastically accepted an excerpt from The Maladjusted Terrorist  for publication in his legendary Evergreen Review. It was published in the Spring issue.


As a critic and essayist, Boylan is a regular contributor to Boston Review, and his work has appeared in many journals and reviews, including The Economist, The New York Times Book Review, The Literary Review, The Scotsman, and The Texas Observer. He currently lives in Texas.