 It also won the 1965 Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society.The novel is the story of the lives of four loosely connected people, whose common link is the mystic experience of the chariot of the title described in the Book of Ezekiel, and traces their lives towards the point where they realise they share the same vision.The novel combines literature, mysticism and suburban life in 1950s Australia to show the ignorance and prejudice of the everyday people in reaction to the few who see the infinite, snowballing with catastrophic consequences

The book begins with an epigraph from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in which William Blake imagines a conversation with the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel.