My Life in Orange

January 10, 2005
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. Agent, Denise Shannon.

Starred review from December 1, 2004
" "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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)