Anthony Burgess (1917 -1993, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Burgess) was a lapsed Catholic from Manchester who was not merely a prolific writer but composer as well. His Catholic background left defining influences in his thought and Earthly Powers (1980) is an epic investigation of human fallibility, the exercise of power, and of corruption.
On his eighty-first birthday, retired gay writer Kenneth Toomey is asked by the Archbishop of Malta to assist in the process of canonization of Carlo Campanati, the late Pope Gregory XVII, and his brother-in-law. Toomey subsequently works on his memoirs, which span the major part of the 20th century.
656 pages Vintage Classics paperback edition.
ISBN 978-0099468646
Anthony Burgess