Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Kapur (India Becoming) takes an enlightening look at how a well-meaning utopian community in India became complicated by reality. In a propulsive narrative, he chronicles the story of John Walker and Diane Maes, the parents of his wife, Auralice, who left their homes in the waning days of the hippie movement for South India's idealistic "planned city" Auroville, which grew out of an ashram, where they were "joined by hundreds and then thousands of others"--including Kapur and his parents. (Kapur and Auralice met as kids and reunited years later attending college in America.) Designed to encourage "human unity," Auroville offered nothing but harmony, until John fell mysteriously ill and died at 44, and Diane, shortly after, committed suicide. At just 14, Auralice was shipped off to New York City to live with a relative and contend with her paternal family's resentment toward a community that left her parents dead, and may have been behind such shady occurrences as letters allegedly written by her sick father to her grandfather requesting financial help. The most captivating twist, though, is that when Kapur and Auralice decided to return to Auroville in 2004, they found "a thriving township of about three and half thousand people from fifty-nine countries." Expect the unexpected in this riveting story. (July)
Kirkus Review
A transcendent vision left dark shadows. Founded in 1968, Auroville, in southern India, was "an aspiring utopia" aiming to "illuminate a new path for the planet." Kapur, Whiting Creative Nonfiction grantee, was born there, as was his wife, Auralice. Both left for the U.S. as teenagers; in 2004, they returned to raise a family. Melding history, biography, and memoir, the author offers a sensitive examination of Auroville's complex origins, tumultuous evolution, and, not least, "the very idea of utopia and the search for perfection." Central to the narrative are Auralice's mother and adoptive father, Diane Maes and John Walker, who died in 1986, when Auralice was 14: John, from a severe illness for which he refused medical care; Diane, by ingesting poisonous seeds. Their deaths, Kapur writes, "loomed huge in our lives" and in the community's collective memory. Led in its early years by a Parisian-born woman whom spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo designated as the Mother, Auroville attracted idealistic individuals seeking to escape the "broken materialism" of Western culture--a world that Walker, pampered and wealthy, knew well. Although his family did not understand his commitment to Auroville, they amply funded his quest. Despite its spiritual underpinnings, the community suffered violent conflicts, intensifying after the Mother's death in 1973. Utopia, Kapur reflects astutely, "is so often shot through with the worst forms of callousness and cruelty. Human beings--individuals, families--are mere sideshows in the quest for a perfect world; they are sacrificed at the altar of ideals." Still, the author portrays with generosity the consuming faith that led Maes and Walker to endure suffering and to leave Auralice abandoned. "Who am I," he writes, "to doubt that there are more things in this world than fit within my limited philosophy?" Describing the book as a "shared endeavor," Kapur underscores Auralice's need to make sense of the deaths that traumatized her. A discerning portrait of a storied community. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Kapur (India Becoming, 2012) attempts to unravel the mysteries of a place and two people who died there in this moving, complex combination of history both social and personal. The author and his wife, Aurilice, both grew up in "aspiring utopia" Auroville, an intentional community in Southern India founded by a volatile mixture of hippies and would-be mystics. When Aurilice was 14, her mother and adoptive father died, and she went to live with relatives in the U.S. Later, in the U.S. to attend school, Kapur re-met her. Kapur traces the stormy history of a community to which he and his wife returned to raise their children and about which he has mixed feelings, as well as the paths that led to the death of his wife's parents. Along the way, he makes good use of the many revealing letters Aurilice's adoptive father sent home to his upper-class family. While Aurilice's parents' deaths turn out to be more sad than mysterious, Kapur clearly and passionately articulates both his love for Auroville and his deep awareness of its flaws.
