Greetings From Utopia Park

“Claire Hoffman brilliantly captures a world that is at once familiar and exotic, yet it is more than that. It is about the meaning of faith in the modern world and how the simple desire for spiritual connection can sometimes lead to devastating consequences. I love it.” —Reza Aslan, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Zealot

When Claire Hoffman’s alcoholic father leaves a pile of cash on their New York apartment table and disappears, her mother tells Claire and her brother, Stacey, that they are going to heaven—Maharishi’s Heaven on Earth in Iowa, ground zero for the Transcendental Meditation movement in America during the ’80s.

In this insular enclave, with its commitment to world peace and enlightenment, the Hoffmans find security, serenity, and connection—along with unique problems. Claire receives an unorthodox education, and meditation is graded. Increasingly skeptical, determined to make something of herself, Claire flees to her father in California.

Decades later, working in journalism and academia, Claire struggles with new motherhood and professional cynicism, and misses the vivid, hopeful, mystical essence of her youth. However, she realizes that a reckoning with her history in Iowa holds the key to moving forward. Returning to her hometown, she pursues a universal question: Can you reconcile cynicism about faith with a desire for the sacred?

With GREETINGS FROM UTOPIA PARK: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood (Harper; June 2016), Claire delivers a riveting chronicle of growing up in this remote Midwestern meditation community. Beautifully told, emotionally stirring, and unflinchingly candid, this exquisite memoir provides an immersive look into a closed society while it contemplates essential questions of meaning, faith, purpose, and fulfillment.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Claire Hoffman writes for national magazines and holds a master’s degree in religion from the University of Chicago, and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She was a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone. She serves on the board of her family foundation, the Goldhirsh Foundation, as well as ProPublica and the Columbia Journalism School.