HUNGRY GHOST

A jaded magazine photographer seeks spiritual enlightenment and true love while wallowing in brand-name accoutrements in this contrived but engagingly confessional debut, narrated in the second person. Unashamedly narcissistic and materialistic, 39-year-old Carter Cox has recently turned to Buddhism in an attempt to wean himself away from flings with Banana Republic models and hot German backpackers. Trying to infuse more meaning into both his art and his life, Carter retreats to a serene, mountaintop Buddhist temple in upstate New York, where he hopes to find inner peace. Instead, he finds 26-year-old Mia Malone, a beautiful Catholic virgin searching for transcendence. Unsure whether his love for Malone is genuine, Carter invites her along to a photo shoot in Morocco, where the two are confronted with both spiritual and physical perils. Mia's first impression of Carter ("you smell too good and are too tan to be trustworthy") is fairly accurate, but there is something refreshing about a straight male protagonist who gives a running chronicle of his daily outfits ("Guessing, correctly, that Mia prefers conservative attire, you've worn brown corduroys and a beige Kenneth Cole sweater"). Mia, a Southerner with odd British inflections ("my daft effort at being arch"), is too good to be true, but Kachtick manages to make her almost believable as an earnest Bible-reading and fashion-ignorant counterpoint to Carter. The novel takes a downward turn at the end when Kachtick plays with alternate endings to his story, but this is otherwise an engaging chronicle of Calvin Klein–clad soul-searching. Agent, William Clark. (May)

Forecast:Readers who shell out for expensive yoga pants are the likely potential audience for Kachtick's debut. 5-city author tour.