Right Here, Right Now

A super-rich, megalomanical motivational speaker turned cult leader acts as the vehicle for Ellis's (Home Repairs) hilariously graphic, oddly disjointed send-up of New Age zealotry. Ashton Robinson is the charismatic African American who makes millions off his seminars and the tapes that he hawks on infomercials. Ashton's advice is pretty simple stuff: don't be afraid to ask the boss for a raise; stop blaming yourself and start loving yourself. In an epiphany, Ashton downs a bottle of expired cough syrup and hallucinates a Brazilian dwarf shapeshifter who gives Ashton both advice on his career path and mind-blowing sex. Heeding the call of his mysterious and mystical vision, Ashton asks his bewildered audience at the next seminar to live for ""right here, right now"" and to open their minds to otherworldly possibilities. Eleven members decide to move into his Santa Cruz mansion to become his disciples. After reading a stack of New Age books, Ashton bases his new religion on a stew of hypnotism, telepathy, animalistic religion, Buddhism, crystals, etc. The true religion, he decides, requires that he has tantric sex with his female followers, while their husbands are sidelined. More and more reliant upon cough syrup to ease his paranoia, Ashton incorporates ever wackier methods to gain enlightenment; and after worried family members sic 60 Minutes on him, his jig is finally up. As in his previous work, Ellis experiments with narrative devices. The story is related as replays of taped conversations Ashton himself made of his experiences. Initially clever, the device is ultimately gimmicky and distracting. The numerous sex scenes, while funny, tend to dominate the novel, which is bound to intrigue some readers while offending others. Agent, Lisa Bankof. (Jan.)