This Sweet Life: Poignant new memoir by mother and sister of James Arthur Ray victim Kirby Brown

Ginny Brown and her daughter, Jean Brown, have released This Sweet Life: How we lived after Kirby died, an intimate memoir about losing their daughter/sister, Kirby Brown, in a phony sweat lodge perpetrated in October 2009 by James Arthur Ray. Ray, as you almost certainly know, is a sociopathic selfish-help guru and star of that infamous infomercial for greed and narcissism, The Secret; for the deaths of Kirby and two other people, James Shore and Liz Neuman, he was convicted of negligent homicide and ultimately served less than two years in an Arizona state prison. He has been relentlessly pounding the comeback trail ever since his release, parading himself as a survivor of nearly unbearable personal trials and an expert in "redemption."

While Ray smirks on Instagram and Facebook and touts his overpriced "coaching" services, Ginny Brown and Jean Brown have been left with their unspeakable grief. But they have turned that grief not only into a nonprofit organization to help others, Seek Safely, but now into a book that they truly hope will make a difference. This Sweet Life has been described, in numerous reviews by advance readers, as both a beautiful and heartbreaking book and an essential work that helps to expose the dark side of the industry to which so many people turn in their quests for enlightenment and inspiration.

I am very much looking forward to reading it.

There will be a live book launch event on Facebook on Tuesday, June 30, 2020 at 7:00 PM EST. My pal Jason "Salty Droid" Jones, who has blogged extensively and poignantly about this matter, will be participating. So will former Ray follower Connie Joy, author of Tragedy in Sedona: My Life in James Arthur Ray's Inner Circle.

For more info about This Sweet Life, visit the Facebook page.

And, oh, yes, here's where you can order a copy of This Sweet Life for yourself. I already have.

Never forget.

Related on this Whirled

• October 2010: Musings on a tragedy and its meanings.
  I published this on the one-year anniversary of the infamous "sweat lodge," framing my musings around a review of Connie Joy's Tragedy in Sedona.
• April 2019: From drawn-and-quartered martyr to "Crisis Coach": James Arthur Ray's newest desperate gimmick
  This is just one of numerous posts about Ray's arrogant yet pathetic attempts to reestablish himself as a selfish-help superstar.