My debut nonfiction book, Sins of My Father: A Daughter, A Cult, A Wild Unravelling was published a few weeks ago (17th March) and I’ve been taking it easy for a week or so, just to give myself a bit of space and to rest a little.

One thing that I’ve been asked quite a lot is how does it feel to have your personal story out there? And I’m not sure how well I’ve answered that question, but one thing I am sure of is that when you spend time crafting a book, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, the crafting acts as a protective cloak in a way. ‘Beautiful prose begs forgiveness’ – I can’t remember who said this. It might have been Phillip Lopate. I must look it up. But isn’t that right? This feels even more important when it’s personal narrative.

Remember, that voice is everything in memoir and so you are asking the reader to sit with you, to listen to you, and to sympathise – or, even better – empathise with what you have come to know, or even what you discover in the course of writing the book. I guess it’s like dressing yourself up respectfully, wearing that very special scent and very special lipstick. Spending time thinking about how to be the most stylish gal on the block. Or maybe this risks sounding like it’s all a pretence… and it’s not. The real challenge is cultivating that style, craft and voice, while remaining true to yourself – being authentic. It is you, but is also the persona you have discovered is the right medium for the story.

So, how do I feel? How do I really feel? I feel pangs of guilt at times when I think about immortalising my dad on the page seen entirely through my lens. That of a daughter who was betrayed by him, but also didn’t stop loving him – like really loving him. I feel guilty because he is not here to defend himself. But then I speak to someone who was once his friend and work colleague, as I did this afternoon, who tells me stories of his unbelievable lying and delusion. She tells me how reading my book has validated for her, her discomfort around him all those years back. How he surrounded himself with people who gave him the adulation he craved, but she never believed him.

She told me many things that my dad lied about – turning up at work in a convertible Rolls Royce, apparently inherited from an uncle (it disappeared after a few weeks). He said to her, that when Bhagwan gave him his sannyasin name, he told him it meant, ‘Great Leader’ – because he wanted my dad to take over leading the cult when Bhagwan died. (The Sanskrit for Purvodaya is actually rising in the East…). He did always want people to think of him as a guru. She had to edit his biogs for books he wrote, in which he made outlandish statements like ‘I was once a Franciscan monk, but had swapped to following Bhagwan as it was a belief system more compatible with real life.’

Every time she confronted my dad and told him he was wrong about something, he deflected by saying, ‘I bet you’re a lovely girlfriend. I’d like to get to know you better.’ He could relate to her only through flirtation.

I laugh when I think of how he would have survived in this world, post #METoo.

So, how do I feel? I feel that I did something brave. I found my voice, and in doing so I shared what it’s like to have a narcissist and a liar, as a dad. There are certain men out there who will do everything in their power to stay in a place of power, and to keep you subjugated, lesser, in need. That was me, and is also the story of many women and their fathers, or the key men in their life. My dad strutted around with an arrogant swagger and many people believed his hubris. He kidded a lot of them – apparently an ex-lover of his still thinks he was more enlightened than most. But I knew him better than that.

You can buy my book here.