A humorous, picaresque and sometimes disconcerting, romp through life and loves of a young bastard expelled from art school. Quintessentially English.
QUENTIN SAGE’s life is humdrum, routine. An art college dropout, he is working in a firm decorating religious tracts sold in developing countries.
His partner JANE has her first exhibition coming up and is moving towards artistic success, which exacerbates his discontent.
In New York we meet MARTIN PHILLIPS, Sage’s father, who has signed up a pop group with which he plans to make his fortune.
Martin is a rogue and a chancer, but this characteristic enables him to make the wherewithal eventually to provide for his bastard son’s salvation.
Sage is accidentally booked for kerb crawling. Then staying with a friend makes him aware that people in a conventional family are no happier than himself. He sets off to travel.
Martin has a drugs crisis with his group, and Sage turns to religions in Istanbul. Jane is painting from the head for profit; Sage finds he is painting from the heart. He is discovering his true self through a fusion of art and religion
Ready for editing, set in indeterminate present, it could be changed to eighties. Synopsis at 'Chap.33'. To be followed by Middle Sage and Sage in Old Age