Set on the coast of Maine and in the high desert of New Mexico, Buddhism for Western Children is a universal and timeless story of a boy who must escape subjugation, tell his story, and reclaim his soul.
In search of community and transcendence, ten-year-old Daniel鈥檚 family is swept into the thrall of a potent and manipulative guru. To his followers, Avadhoot Master King Ivanovich is a living god, a charismatic leader who may reveal enlightenment as he mesmerizes, and alchemizes, Eastern and Western spiritual traditions.
Daniel鈥檚 family plunges into a world with different rules and rhythms鈥攁nd with no apparent exit. They join other devotees in shunning the outside world, and fall under the absolutist authority of the guru and his lieutenants. Daniel bears witness to the relentless competition for the guru鈥檚 favor, even as he begins to recognize the perversion of his spirituality. Soon, Daniel himself is chosen to play a role. As tensions simmer and roil, darkness intrudes. Devotees overstep, placing even the children in jeopardy. Daniel struggles with conflicting desires to resist and to belong, until finally he must decide who to save and who to abandon.
With spiraling, spellbinding language, Allio reveals a cast of vivid, often darkly funny characters, and propels us toward a shocking climax where Daniel鈥檚 story cracks open like a kaleidoscope, revealing the costs of submitting to a tyrant and the shimmering resilience of the human spirit.
鈥Buddhism for Western Children is insane. It鈥檚 a weird, fun, and horrifying dream. Allio鈥檚 sentences are stunning (e.g. Concerning the air: 鈥淚t鈥檚 so fresh it seems carbonated.鈥) and the end is home to the best plot twist of 2018. I said it. Read the book and tell me I'm wrong.鈥濃NewPages
鈥淎n enigmatic and fervent read.鈥濃Kirkus
鈥Buddhism for Western Children is an esoteric, poetic, and socially critical work of literary fiction.鈥濃Foreword Reviews
鈥淥ne of the traditional writer鈥檚 advices is 鈥楪ive the devil all the best lines鈥; Kirstin Allio has instead elected to give him the entire book, leaving the reader and her dear feral child of a protagonist, Daniel/Jubal, to fight their way free together through nests of dazzling, seductive, off-kilter language. The result is a superb exploration of the emotional condition of guru-drunkenness.鈥
鈥擩onathan Lethem, author, Motherless Brooklyn and A Gambler鈥檚 Anatomy
鈥淜irstin Allio has written a novel full of indelible characters, wild scenes, incidental wisdom, and the best kinds of surprises. I fell entirely under the spell of her wonderful writing and of her outrageous, shameless guru; I would have followed him anywhere. Buddhism for Western Children is a sparkling, inventive, and deeply entertaining novel.鈥 鈥擬argot Livesey, author, Mercury
鈥淎n incisive look at what it means to be a child dragged along in the undercurrent of one鈥檚 parents鈥 fervor for enlightenment and willful turning away from the outside world. This is a beautifully written and poetic meditation on power, absurdity, community, and manipulation, and how one survives when all things collide in a powerful and threatening way.鈥濃擝rian Evenson, author, A Collapse of Horses
