Publishers Weekly (March 26, 2001)
Roland Vernon
Exploring the Krishnamurti Mystery
By Theola S. Labbé
English author Roland Vernon first came across the work of Indian prophet Jiddu Krishnamurti in the spiritually restless 1970s, but found his antireligion writings too confusing and nihilistic. Vernon put them aside. Years later, still disillusioned with traditional religion, Vernon – who grew up in the Church of England – was drawn to Annie Besant, a socialist who rejected her own Christian background in favor of political activism. Enchanted by her life story, Vernon grew more enthralled to find that Besant and the Theosophical Society – which she joined and dominated (along with Charles Leadbeater) from 1895 until the 1930s – had handpicked a young Indian boy in 1909 and crowned him as the Messiah. That boy was Krishnamurti.
Confused by the apparent contradiction between Krishnamurti's writings and his life story, Vernon wrote Star of the East: Krishnamurti: The Invention of a Messiah (Palgrave/St. Martin's, Mar.) a historical profile of the prophet, to tell the full tale. “How could this man who had offended me before by his antireligious spirituality claim to have any muscle in his message if he had been groomed to be such a central authority?” Vernon tells PW from his home in Somerset. The paradox did not leave Vernon bitter. “I have no ax to grind, no teaching to pass along. It's a piece of history,” Vernon says of the book which debuted in England last fall, published by Constable.
Krishnamurti was the son of Brahmin who lived in relative obscurity until he was “discovered” on a Madras beach at age 14. He was a reluctant but charismatic teacher for Besant's Theosophical Society until renounching it and its reliance on the notion of prophets in 1929.
At the suggestion of a Constable editor, Palgrave v-p and editorial director Michael Flamini read a galley of the British version and nearly finished it in one sitting. He quickly scooped up North American rights. “It was compelling in the ways a novel is compelling,” says Flamini.
—Publishers Weekly
March 2001
