From Publishers Weekly
London journalist Guest (the
Guardian; the
Daily Telegraph) shares the bittersweet story of his nomadic childhood as a member of the
sannyasin, a group of people who swathed themselves in orange and lived in the various communes of the infamous Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. In 1979, when Guest was six, he was brought into the group by his mother, a lapsed Catholic who "surrendered herself to the world without a second thought," moving to England, Germany, India and Oregon to work for the cause of Bhagwan's Eastern mysticism (which involved, among other things, engaging in sexual freedom and inhaling laughing gas). Guest played with the ragtag children of the hippie adults working in these ashrams, sometimes going for long periods of time without his mother's love or guidance. He systematically observes the daily lives of the
sannyasin and their master, refusing to trash the devotees or their spiritual beliefs, instead targeting the manipulations of Bhagwan, whom he depicts as a power-mad holy man who taught restraint, poverty and obedience yet collected Rolls-Royces and told jokes "cribbed from
Playboy." Guest forgives his neglectful mother as he records Bhagwan's fall from grace through American tax evasion, lawsuits and denials of admittance from country to country until his empire crumbled. Honest and vivid, this is an absorbing book about survival and good intentions gone awry.
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* "Sannyasins gathered together to abandon weight, to surrender themselves to levity. . . . The children of Bhagwan's communes needed other things. We needed comfort. We needed a place to stash our Legos. We needed our home." Now 27, Guest spent the majority of his first 10 years shuttling around the globe between communes organized by followers of the notorious Indian guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. In this stirring memoir, Guest combines thoroughly researched portraits of his controversial guru's movement (and its subsequent downfall), his family's story, and his own clear, poignant childhood memories of commune life. A contributor to London newspapers such as the
Guardian and the
Daily Telegraph, Guest writes with a reporter's sense of economy and restraint, letting absurd, even shocking details speak for themselves. Guest remembers the heartbreaking loneliness and sorrow that "did not fit into the commune's decade-long dream of laughter and celebration" as well as his profound confusion upon reentering mainstream society at age 11. But his anger toward the mother who periodically abandoned him has softened into a mature, deeply moving sympathy. Looking at one of the book's many family photos of his young parents, Guest writes, "I want to take something of my heart and push it . . . back in time. I want to tell them I'll be OK." An intelligent, wry, openhearted memoir of surviving a childhood and a cultural phenomenon that were both extraordinary.
Gillian EngbergCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
