END
C H R O N O L O G Y
1934—Kura is born.
1952—Cassiopeia (“Queenie”) is born.
1954—Kelly is born.
1960—Charley is born.
1967—Charley is molested by clergy through 1972.
1968—Kura and Queenie meet at a club in Chicago. A few months later, they reunite in Paris.
1970—They visit a guru in Bombay. Queenie stays four months; Kura remains for seven years.
1976—Kelly becomes a Buddhist. Her practice deepens over the next 25 years.
1977—Kura’s teacher disappears from the ashram. After months of fruitless searching, he returns to his home in the Marais.
1990—Kelly and Charley’s son Ryder is born.
1992—Kura has a heart attack. During convalescence, he renews the search for his teacher.
1997—After a near 30-year separation, Kura and Queenie rendezvous in New Delhi. She accompanies him to a remote village.
1997—Charley becomes a plaintiff in a class action suit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange.
1998—Kura dies at 63.
1999—Kelly’s mother dies; she and Charley are wed. Kelly takes a sabbatical from school teaching and tutors prisoners in the fundamentals of Buddhist meditation. She eventually helms a popular special education program for children. Kelly signs a contract to write a memoir.
2001—Kelly and Charley experience a terrible loss. Charley receives a settlement.
2005—Queenie tells her story (“Second Guru”).
2010—Charley tells his story (“First Guru”).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bruce Wagner is the author of Dead Stars, Memorial, The Chrysanthemum Palace (a PEN/Faulkner fiction award finalist), Still Holding, I’ll Let You Go, I’m Losing You, and Force Majeure. He lives in Los Angeles.
NOTES
1. Lucien Carr died in 2005.
2. And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks was finally published in 2008. As current as he was on the Beats, I’m not sure why he missed it.
3. Johnson’s critically acclaimed memoir of her relationship with Kerouac was published in 1999. Her biography, The Voice Is Alclass="underline" The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac, would not come out until 2012, a few years after this interview.
4. He got stoned very quickly; my initial thoughts were to end the day’s session but I let it go.
5. Briefly referred to at the end of the short preface.
6. Cf. Shri Padodaka, M. Cidandamurti (Mysore, 1983); Caranamrt Ramayana, Dvarkadas Parikh (Mathura: Sri Bajarang Pustakalay, 1991); Tobacco Saint, David Gordon White (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); et alia.