Sex, Death, Enlightenment

Death inspires a hip young New Yorker to quest for spiritual life in this searing memoir. During a vacation in Jamaica in the mid-1980s, Matousek realized that his life was about to undergo a cataclysm. At 28, he was an editor at the chic Manhattan magazine Interview. Yet despite success, he was sickened by the meaninglessness of his work; the sight of the magazine's founder, Andy Warhol, ""ghostlike, his sharp dead eyes surveying his kingdom,"" did little to ease his soul. As Matousek and a college friend lazed on the beach, the author saw on his friend's foot a purple spot, a symptom of AIDS. Suddenly, Matousek ""knew without question that the virus was in me""--and that ""there was not a minute to waste."" He determined to gain a glimmer of enlightenment before he died. A guiding angel arrived in the form of Alexander Maxwell, a handsome young writer. The two became lovers, and Maxwell took Matousek to India, with a detour to Germany to meet Mother Meera, a young woman believed by many to be an incarnation of the Goddess. Through the subsequent decade of pain and quest also chronicled in this brave, beautiful and brilliantly observed work, Matousek never forgot her. Finally, he returned to Germany, where he found from Mother Meera confirmation that his own life is the only real path he has ever needed. Author tour. (Apr.)