<p>Breaking a long silence Oliver, a young Englishman, writes to his elder brother, Patrick. Oliver, the idealistic younger brother is living in a Hindu Monastery and has decided to take his final monastic vows. Patrick, a successful, long-married publisher, newly in love with a boy in Los Angeles, decides to visit Oliver to persuade him not renounce the world.<br><br>First published in 1967, <i>A Meeting by the River</i> exposes the complex rivalries of sibling relationships and dramatises the conflict between sexuality and spirituality.</p>