The Naked Man — Michael Tobias

Leonard Rosenbalm, a young, highly successful businessman in the garment district of Los Angeles, a man catapulted by wealth and prestige, is suddenly overwhelmed by calamity. Dazed and bewildered, bankrupt and mortified, he confronts a homeless person in the coldness of night, gives the shivering man his clothes and walks off into the heart of Los Angeles - stark naked! Though Leonard does not know it as yet, he has embarked on a remarkable mission of peace in the footsteps of the celebrated Indian mendicant, Mahavira, the great proponent of Jainism, one of the world's oldest religions. Leonard has renounced his family and possessions; he hallucinates, speaks a nearly extinct Jain language fluently, and somehow intuits in his mind's eye the incredible saga of Mahavira, who lived twenty-five hundred years before. Leonard is arrested on charges of indecent exposure, thrown in jail and psychoanalyzed. The ensuing confusion within the circles of authority is punctuated by a precocious and dedicated Jain lawyer who comes to Leonard's defense, discovering his own roots in the process; and by Leonard's own brilliant powers rising to the occasion; powers of lucidity and compassion. Free for the time being, trailed by a growing caravan of stragglers from skid row, Leonard continues walking - naked, speaking out about nonviolence - across Los Angeles and towards the Nevada state squarely in the limelight, but he does not bask there. The police are gearing up for a final assault on a naked man, but there is a small miracle in store for Leonard Rosenbalm.
Humorous, poignant, provocative, this is a major avant garde work of fiction by the best-selling author of Life Force, Voice of the Planet, Believe, Fatal Exposure and many other works.