The Vicar of Sorrows

When his mother dies, Francis is shocked to discover that she had a lover and that he must share his inheritance with this (awful) man. Then Francis falls in love--painfully, absolutely--with an irresistible but most unsuitable young woman.

A. N. Wilson traces Franciss descent through various circles of the English establishment, a tragi-comic journey that takes the hapless hero to the outer edges of both absurdity and despair.