The Heartbreaker by Susan Howatch

You wouldn’t normally think that the Church of England would make for scintillating reading, but you’d be sooooooo wrong if you start reading the “Church of England” series written by British author Susan Howatch. I stumbled across one of them going on 15 years ago now, and was hooked. The series is broken up into two semi-series – for lack of a better way to put it – with the first six books focusing on the evolution of the Church from post-WWI into the late 1960s with all the attendant changes that happened in the world. The second series consists of three intertwined books that feature references and characters from the first six books, but are set in 1990s London and take on much more timely and controversial topics than the first six. The last book of the series, The Heartbreaker, goes pretty in-depth into prostitution, homosexuality, cult mentality, some paranormal and supernatural elements including a form of devil worship, and ultimately, love and redemption. I highly recommend all nine books, but the latter three are unputdownable.

The main character is Gavin Blake, a male prostitute whose clientele are wealthy, middle-aged gay men, but he is actually heterosexual. If you’re thinking “what the hell, how can a male prostitute servicing gay men be straight” you’d be where I was when I cracked open the book. But it’s incredibly fascinating how Howatch writes about human nature in all of these books, particularly the fluid nature of sexuality and how it’s possible to train your mind to do something completely alien to your nature if you’re in survival mode.

Gavin works for a woman named Elizabeth, who is his pimp but who also runs a very nasty little group made up of people who use bizarre sex and occult rituals to gain power in London. He has come to depend on her as he is traumatized by much loss in his own life, loss of his brother, messed-up parents, the works. He’s incredibly good-looking and charming, but the internal damage from his upbringing and the subsequent abuses he has gone through with Elizabeth turning him into a prostitute (though he doesn’t initially see it as abuse) make him very superficial and facile. He indulges in affairs with women who he then dumps in his charming way……he is the ultimate heartbreaker who leaves a trail of disaster and heartbreak in his wake because he himself has had his heart broken and been devastated. Well, we all have in some way or other, haven’t we?

When his path starts crossing with a woman named Carta Graham, he starts idolizing her and lusting after her, not realizing that she represents, on a very deep level, a way of life he used to have growing up and also a way of life that he is craving, though he continues to stay in the world of prostitution. He also meets Nicholas Darrow, the rector of a church called St. Benet’s, a part of the Church of England that works with psychologists, doctors, and holistic healers, to create a place where people can worship and heal both physically and spiritually. Gavin is so emotionally damaged that it takes him awhile to figure out there can be a different way of life for him through Carta and Nicholas, and his journey starts……..but not without danger along the way.

The ways of the subconscious are deeply explored in all of these books, and particularly here. I’ve always found psychology and our inner instincts and how they sometimes work against us and make us do crazy or awful things in the name of survival, to be utterly fascinating. As Gavin starts to gradually extricate himself from the life of prostitution, he is helped by Carta, by Nick, and most importantly, by Susanne, who also works for Elizabeth as a bookkeeper but who had previously also been a prostitute until she had a meltdown and couldn’t do it any longer. She represents someone who both can leave that lifestyle and heal themselves and get educated and be independent, which is why Gavin initially hates her because she has done what he wants to do with his life.

Susanne helps Gavin out of a major jam, involving blackmail sex tapes, illicit sex, etc., and to thank her, he takes her to the Savoy for champagne, dinner and dancing, and the next day, as they wait for the fallout from Elizabeth possibly finding out what they’ve done, Susanne grudgingly makes Gavin food and they begin to develop a friendship and a relationship that neither of them have had before. As they share a frittata and wine post-shag (as they call it in England), they start planning how to escape Elizabeth and her long, evil grasp.

After the shag Susanne keeps me organised by telling me I’ve got to eat some more, and she fixes what she calls a “fry-tartar,” a jumbo omelette stuffed with onions, peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes. We have to have eggs again because she’s run out of everything else, but the frittata’s so good I don’t care. We drink Italian wine with it and the cat goes in and out through the cat-flap, just as it would in a normal home.

Frittatas are among my favorite things to make, and not just because they’re relatively simple. I hate to admit this, but I am kind of a dumbass when it comes to making omelettes because I can’t master the damn omelette fold and flip. I know, I know, it’s easy, blah blah blah. It’s not. I have fucked up many, many potential omelettes in my life, and there was that time that one ended up on the floor………….thank God for dogs, is all I have to say. Anyway, here’s my take on a classic Italian frittata, or as Susanne would call it, a fry-tartar!

INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 eggs, room temperature
1 russet potato, peeled and finely diced
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
3 green onions, finely diced
1 sausage link, squeezed out of its casing
1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD
Heat your oven to 500 F. Add the oil to a heavy, cast-iron skillet and cook the potato until they soften, about 7-10 minutes. Set aside.

Mix the eggs together in a large bowl and whisk. Add salt and pepper to taste.

In the skillet, add a a bit more olive oil and add the diced red pepper, the diced onions, and the sausage meat, and stir together. Cook for about 5-7 minutes, until the onion is translucent and most of the liquid has cooked off.

Add the potatoes to skillet and mix everything together so everything is evenly spaced across the pan bottom.

Add the shredded cheese and the heavy cream to the eggs in the mixing bowl, whisk together again, then pour over the potato-pepper-sausage mixture in the skillet.

Cook stovetop over low heat until the eggs set on the bottom of the pan, about 5 minutes. Give the skillet a good swirl so the eggs evenly coat everything, then put the egg mixture into the oven and cook for another 5 minutes, so the eggs cook evenly.

Remove, let cool, and flip out onto a platter. Serve with the Italian wine of your choice. It’s such a delicious and simple way to cook eggs and it’s an excellent way to use up what’s in your refrigerator before it goes bad or expires. And people will think you’re a damn kitchen goddess!