S. is Sarah Worth—doctor's wife. North Shore matron, loving mother, and now (suddenly!) ardent follower of a Hindu religious leader known as the Arhat. As this brilliant and very funny novel opens, Sarah is fleeing the confinement of her suburban life to become a sannyasin (pilgrim) at her guru's Arizona ashram.

In the letters and audiocassettes that Sarah sends to her husband, daughter, mother, brother, best friend—to her psychiatrist and her hairdresser and her dentist—master novelist John Updike gives us a witty comedy of manners, a biting satire of life on a religious commune, and the story—deep and true—of an American woman in search of herself.