As a child growing up in the Hollywood Hills during the 1950s, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson thought it was perfectly normal that a guru named Paul Brunton lived with his family and dictated everything about their daily rituals, from their diet to their travel plans to his parents' sex life. But in this extraordinary memoir, Masson reflects on just how bizarre everything about his childhood wasespecially the relationship between his father and the elusive, eminent mystic he revered (and supported) for years. Writing with candor and charm, Masson describes how his father became convinced that Paul BruntonP.B. to his familiarswas a living God who would fill his life with enlightenment and wonder. As the Masson family's personal guru, Brunton freely discussed his life on other planets, laid down strict rules on fasting and meditation, and warned them all of the imminence of World War III. For years, young Jeffrey was as ardent a disciple as his fatherbut with the onset of adolescence, he staged a dramatic revolt against this domestic deity and everything he stood for. Filled with absurdist humor and intimate confessions,My Father's Guruis the spellbinding coming-of-age story of one of our most brilliant writers.

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, ex-psychoanalyst and former projects director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, has written more than a dozen books, including the bestsellers <i>The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats, Dogs Never Lie About Love, </i>and <i>When Elephants Weep</i>. A longtime resident of Berkeley, California, he now lives in New Zealand with his wife, two sons, and five cats.