A spellbinding story about love, faith, the search for utopia—and the often devastating cost of idealism.
It’s the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world—Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, the future bright.
So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later, on the same day, on a cracked concrete floor in a thatch hut by a remote canyon? This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in Better to Have Gone, and it carries deep personal resonance: Diane and John were the parents of Akash’s wife, Auralice. Akash and Auralice grew up in Auroville; like the rest of their community, they never really understood those deaths.
In 2004, Akash and Auralice return to Auroville from New York, where they have been living with John’s family. As they reestablish themselves, along with their two sons, in the community, they must confront the ghosts of those distant deaths. Slowly, they come to understand how the tragic individual fates of John and Diane intersected with the collective history of their town.
Better to Have Gone is a book about the human cost of our age-old quest for a more perfect world. It probes the underexplored yet universal idea of utopia, and it portrays in vivid detail the daily life of one utopian community. Richly atmospheric and filled with remarkable characters, spread across time and continents, this is narrative writing of the highest order—a heartbreaking, unforgettable story.
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“This gripping, magical, deeply moving book is a story of stubborn, self-sacrificing idealism—both its beauty and its cost…The struggle to forge a nobler humanity is often brutal, and the history of Auroville is no exception. But…it is exhilarating to read about a place and time where utopia seemed not just possible but close.”
— Larissa MacFarquhar, author of Strangers Drowning
“A riveting account of human aspiration and folly taken to extremes.”
— Boston Globe“Kapur is a terrific storyteller…His writing compels you to follow him as he digs deeper.”
— San Francisco Chronicle“Weaves together memoir, history, and ethnography to tell a story of the desire for utopia and the cruelties committed in its name…told with a native son’s fondness, fury, stubborn loyalty, exasperated amusement.”
— New York Times“Narrator Vikas Adam is the contemplative voice behind this true story…The overall effect for listeners is of tuning in to a caring reporter who is shifting through facts, memories, and anecdotes to help us all make sense of an unsolved tragedy.”
— AudioFile“Entrancing, devastating, and unforgettable. Above all, this book is a hauntingly beautiful love story, composed by a writer in full command of his craft.”
— Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove“Takes us deep into the heart of an intentional community’s ambitions and failures. This is an important work about the eternal human desire for utopia and about the dystopia that always lurks within these dreams.”
— Vikram Chandra, author of Sacred GamesBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Vikas Adam is a classically trained actor with numerous credits in stage, film, commercials, and television, in addition to his over two hundred recorded audiobooks. His narrations have garnered numerous awards and nominations, including AudioFile Earphones Awards, various Best of the Year lists, and the prestigious Audie Award. He was an inaugural inductee into the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame.