A Novel in Double Time

What moves the Archangel Michael to recruit Gustave Termi, a bibulous, middle-aged Swiss history professor in modern-day Geneva, into his legions of divine warriors? It's a total mystery to Gustave, who isn't even sure he believes in God, and is certainly no one's idea of a warrior. He tries psychoanalysis to clear up the visions. That doesn’t work, but a chance encounter with journalist Martine Jeanrenaud in the therapist’s waiting room changes his life. Here again the mysterious hand of Providence is at work; Martine, it turns out, has recently published the biography of an early 20th-century Austrian aristocrat, teacher, and mystic, Stefanie von Rothenberg, as unlikely a mystic as Gustave, who not only had steady visits from heaven and hell but equally steady earthly ones from a bizarre but tenacious swain named Adolf Hitler, whom she first meets in Linz, Austria, in 1907. 

Martine's book (Adoration) is reproduced in its entirety, as Gustave reads his way through it in chapters that alternate contrapuntally with his narrative (Gustave); I call this "double time," as each story pursues its own time line.

Meanwhile, Gustave contends in his daily life with intensified interest from the Archangel, unwelcome scrutiny from his employers and other authorities, a growing concern that he's losing his mind, and a feeling that Stefanie's story is becoming his story, too.