I have to begin my review of acclaimed novelist Heather Rose’s first foray into non-fiction with an admission: I am a deeply unspiritual person. I find “spiritual journey” narratives, generally speaking, solipsistic and tedious: I even grew impatient reading Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha.
This skepticism, atheism, irreligiosity — call it what you will — inevitably colours my reading of Rose’s memoir, which is an account of childhood trauma and adult pain overcome, or at least processed, through what I can only describe as hardcore spiritual work.
