The Seeker Academy by L. D. Gussin

If you’ve been on a retreat of this type, you’ll find this story in The Seeker Academy familiar, riveting, intriguing.

If you haven’t been on one, but wondered what it’s like, and what the people who go there are like, Gussin’s novel is the next best thing.

The `hero’ as she is referred to in the beginning, is Grace Hudson, who probably would not refer to herself as such. She is a middle-aged, warm-hearted wife, mother, and teacher, who takes the illness of her niece very hard and seeks solace in a New Age spiritual retreat center. She neither saves someone nor is saved; she simply experiences the many classes and conversations offered at Seeker, and mulls over those experiences.

At the start we’re taken into an emotionally-charged and vividly described children’s hospital, seen through Aunt Grace’s eyes. Shifting gears, we are transported to summertime at a holistic retreat center, where we are enveloped in an entirely different arena. Here we persevere with Grace as she explores her sadness, her relationships, and her self, without knowing what she’s really looking for.

She is not the only seeker who does not know for what they seek. Her most challenging task is to try not to think, but to simply experience. The effort to not think, to just breathe, for example, leads Grace and her friends to contemplate and discuss what they’re not thinking about. But what they’re more interested in is connection with each other. Grace is definitely not a loner, and likes to talk and share as much as she likes to experience.

Appreciators of fine writing will enjoy the exceptionally crafted sentences and overall structure of this novel. The writing is fastidious, elegant, the descriptions lyrical, the dialogue superb in the opening chapters, and intellectually stimulating later on.

Those who appreciate a history of the New Age movement and its forerunners are also in for a treat: Gussin includes a great deal of detail and background information.

And appreciators of holistic healing and new age communities will also enjoy Gussin’s penetrating observations and insights. Anyone who has been to one will recognize him or herself or someone they know in these pages. He is not sarcastic, nor is he affectionate: he offers us his clear, dispassionate gaze as he unfolds his tale. No one is a caricature, nor is anyone a hero. Ultimately each one seeks what we all do: to become themselves – kindhearted, helpful, healthy human beings.