In incandescent prose award winning novelist Jeet Thayil tells the story of Newton Francis Xavier blocked poet serial seducer of young women reformed alcoholic but only just philosopher recluse all round wild man and India s greatest living painter. At the age of sixty six Xavier who has been living in New York is getting ready to return to the land of his birth to stage one final show of his work accompanied by a mad bacchanal . As we accompany Xavier and his partner and muse Goody on their unsteady and frequently sidetracked journey from New York to New Delhi the venue of the final show we meet a host of memorable characters the Bombay poets of the seventies and eighties poets who sprouted from the soil like weeds or mushrooms or carnivorous new flowers who arrived like meteors burned bright for a season or two and vanished without a trace journalists conmen murderers alcoholics addicts artists whores society ladies thugs and are also given unforgettable and sometimes unbearable insights into love madness poetry sex painting saints death God and the savagery that fuels all great art. Narrated in a huge variety of voices and styles all of which blend seamlessly into a novel of remarkable accomplishment The Book of Chocolate Saints is the sort of literary masterpiece that only comes along once in a very long time.