"I am convinced, " says Jake Silkstone, the hypochondriac narrator of Clive Sinclair's still provocative novel, "that if Rabbi Nathan hadn't tried to rape Helga, our German au pair, during the course of my barmitzvah celebrations at the Caf? Royal on the evening of 21 May 1961, things would have turned out very differently...." In the event, "things", as far as Jake is concerned, have been turning out differently since long before the night of Rabbi...