Dream with Our Eyes Open

First of all, I would feel dishonest if I didn't disclose that I went looking for this memoir because I knew that rachelmanija had written it. When I pulled it from the shelf in the bookstore, I found I was rather reluctant to actually open it: I felt like I was prying into the private business of someone I had only recently met. Fortunately I got over that. I have read the whole thing through twice, and two days ago, when I decided to stop being bashful and write it up, I found myself reading it through again. I'd meant to leaf through it quickly and pinpoint my favorite scenes, but I found it impossible to do only that. Oh yes, I liked the book!

Mani's parents are followers of the guru Meher Baba. When she is seven years old - a precocious child who already reads on a college level and loves her menagerie of pet animals - her parents move to India to become part of their Beloved Baba's ashram. The little girl leaves behind her pets and her wonderful, feisty grandfather and enters a community where she is the only resident child. The culture shock of a move to India would have been extreme even in the best of circumstances, but Mani's situation isn't remotely ideal. The town, Ahmednagar, isn't near much of anything. She is the only foreign student at her school, and the other students mock her and throw stones at her. Her parents are too preoccupied to offer her much in the way of comfort or aid, and the other adults at the ashram either ignore her or constantly admonish her to show her appreciation for being part of Baba's community. And some of the residents of that community are terrifyingly weird. Books, nature, and her own imagination become Mani's refuge and her fortress.

This should be a very sad book, but I found it both screamingly funny and surprisingly optimistic. Brown's descriptions of the eccentric cast of characters who shamble or rampage through her story are sharp and unflinching, and her retelling of the most notable incidents of her young life are vivid and involving. By the end of the volume, she has kept her promise to her younger self to report the misery of her childhood honestly, but she has also acknowledged the part that the experiences played in making her the woman she is today.