Book summary

Theodora Hecht Ottinger, known as Teddy, is a test pilot and also a bisexual feminist pop-cultural figure. She is asked by a magazine to interview Kalki, a cult leader who doesn't normally grant interviews. Kalki is actually a crazed veteran of the Vietnam War who fancies himself the incarnation of the god Shiva, and whose burning desire is to destroy the world. Gore Vidal's fierce and funny 1978 satire takes on religion, the feminist movement, the perils of ideology, and what he sees as the dangerous reluctance of average Americans to think for themselves.