The Margins by John Wigglesworth
It’s a tragedy that will make headline news across the globe—the bodies of scores of Westerners discovered at a remote commune high in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh. Amidst a growing media frenzy, the Indian authorities are desperate for answers, and only Ethan Hicks can provide them—for no one else made it out alive. Yet as Ethan begins to recount what took place up on the mountain, it soon becomes apparent that his story will prove just as shocking as the injuries he survived . . .
Moving between the bustling streets of 1980s Delhi and the forested slopes of the Kullu Valley, THE MARGINS is a dark and unsettling exploration of the human condition—a tale of greed and obsession, but also of love.
About the author
John Wigglesworth is a British national who has been based in Asia for the last ten years. The Margins is his fiction debut. In his spare time—when he’s not writing—John runs his own company in Bangkok. A former backpacking junkie, John travelled extensively across India and South East Asia before realising that his wanderlust was incompatible with the parenting demands of his Westie. He is now settled in Thailand.
Review
I'm going to get personal now in this review and normally I don't like to do this but ‘The Margins’ really hit home and actually bruised my soul. My mum was a wannabe hippie and was chasing the dream of finding a spiritual experience where she could find peace. It went from talking about Christ, to a spiritualist church, meditation, Hinduism, Hare Krishna and finally Buddhism. But during that journey, she decided she wanted to go to India and ‘live the dream’. I was 9 years old. To me it was an adventure - I got to miss school and get on a plane. To her it was much more. We landed in Delhi and then travelled around India and Nepal. Now don't get me wrong I had an awesome time but there were occasions where even I was like what is going on. I remember sitting in an ashram in Bangalore and the guru was Si Baba and there were hordes of people there just worshipping this fat man. I didn't get it. But my mum waxed lyrical about the man. Then we rocked up to an ashram that was uber commercialised, that of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the man who taught The Beatles to meditate. I was just excited there was a German-style bakery there. But now when I look back in hindsight it was the power of money that talked there. If you were poor you weren't getting past the gates into the main ashram. You needed to pay to do courses, even get a mantra.
Anyway, that was a long way round of me saying that this book doesn't seem far fetched at all. It seems scarily real and tangible. I bet if my mum had seen one of those flyers she would have rocked up thinking it was a big adventure and maybe a way back to a more simple world. She would have loved the idea of community living, sharing an overarching goal, one of a simpler happier way of live. Maybe these gurus start out like that before there are the private jets and the expensive courses. But cults corrupt themselves from the inside and then hurt a hell of a lot of people in the process.
So the book… I devoured this book in less than a day and practically never looked up from my screen. The writing, the settings, the description all resonated and then a growing sense of unease and despondency set upon me. Mainly, down to the writer's skills in building up a picture of a dark drug-fuelled existence, a bleak look at capitalism and those who defy it. It's a book about how greed wins, the state of humanity, the reason why people drop out of society and eventually the disappointment of realising that it wasn't an idyll.
The scenes which took place in the interview room - I could feel the sweat, tears and blood seeping from the page. The horror that emerges from the tale will actually make you internally recoil. Then comes the end and that's what scared me. As I could easily imagine being one of those children and that is what bruised my soul.
Easily one of the most thought-provoking books I have read this year. Probably to do with my personal history but I do urge you to read it. Let me know your thoughts.
