Sati

Does God exist? Is she a blonde, blue-eyed woman named Sati, encountered hitchhiking in the Arizona desert where she is picked up by Michael, a long-haul trucker at odds with life? The questions crystallize back in Los Angeles at the trucker's ramshackle apartment, when Sati declares she is the deity and sets about proving it. No miracles, but changes come about for a motley cast: a dying AIDS victim, a drug dealer, a fundamentalist preacher, Michael's estranged wife and their little daughter. Each is attracted to Sati's beautiful simplicity, though they confront and challenge her. When her life is terminated violently, they realize she ``had given us a taste of our inner silence, a taste of ourselves.'' The ancient hope for redemption is recast in this sprightly contemporary parable, the first adult novel from a bestselling author of young adult fiction ( Chain Letter ). (Oct.)