The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

An accident plunges an unnamed narrator, a drug-addicted porn actor into a physical and mental nightmare in a life that is already spiraling downward. Horrifically burned, he loses the beautiful body of which he had prided himself. His manhood, his human resemblance and his very life are at stake as doctors and burn specialists try to help him survive and recover when death itself appears the best result in his own mind. Into the burn unit walks Marianne Engel, a carver of gargoyles. She recognizes him as her lover, the mercenary whom her medieval convent took in the first time he was burned. As he lies in the burn unit, she tells him the story of her life as a medieval scribe at Engelthal. Telling tales of spiritual and romantic love, of Meister Eckhart, medieval German Christian life, Dante's INFERNO, medieval Iceland and Japan, Marianne does for him what the doctors cannot do. She reaches the space in him beneath the body. Is she insane as some claim or is she a woman with a mystical vision from another time?"

This book had me hooked from the first few chapters. The writing style kept me going through the hard to read beginning.

The intertwining of past and present worked. The characters, a psychiatric patient and a drug addicted, burned pornographer worked.

A story of redemption and of what it means to love and be loved.