GRIT & GRACE

Rudell reflects on the time she spent as a member of a commune run by cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and her subsequent years in Hawaii in this memoir.

At the age of 19, the author took a job as a dental assistant to the man who would become her romantic partner. Robert, or “Tosh”—the name he would take when he became a disciple of Rajneesh—was 27 and married, with a young daughter. Still, the two soon became lovers, until Rudell realized Tosh had no plans to leave his wife. Deciding to move on, she married another man and had a son, Gavin. But that marriage broke up, and four years after first meeting him, Rudell went back to work with Tosh, who was now separated from his wife. She and Tosh were kindred souls, both seeking a higher spirituality. In 1981, when Tosh was invited to be the dentist for a new commune called Rajneeshpuram, established in the Oregon desert, they joined the leader Bhagwan’s followers. They remained for several years, until Bhagwan was arrested and deported to India. In 1988, now married, the couple left the cult and moved to Kauai, where an old sailing vessel, the Elixir, awaited them (“she was the biggest boat in the yard and in far worse shape than the photos we’d seen”). Their goal was to rebuild the boat over a six-month period; the project took five years. Rudell uses the years in Kauai as the geographical anchor for a complex memoir that shifts back and forth through time. As the author works on the boat, she ruminates on the commune, sharing an uncensored, visceral portrait of life within the cult—the good, the bad, and the very ugly. The narrative is also a detailed account of boat restoration, full of minutia about refurbishing every piece of wood, sail, line, and piece of brass; these segments are both compelling and exhausting. Most riveting are the sections recounting the perilous journey across the Pacific as the crew navigated the Elixir through storms and roiling seas, with Tosh deathly seasick throughout the entire voyage.

Engaging and informative, with moments of great excitement—but also disturbing and weighted with angst.