"The Abode of Love" is Kate Barlow's remarkable tale of growing up within a religious cult. Founded in the nineteenth century by a charismatic priest, the Agapemone (Greek for 'abode of love') later gained yet more notoriety when Kate's grandfather, who then led the community, claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Protected from the truth about her family's past by a wall of secrecy, it was years before Kate or her two sisters unearthed details of their grandfather's controversial claim and learned of the rumours that had circulated within the local community of sexual scandals, 'spiritual brides' and peculiar rituals. By piecing together details from old photographs and conversations with some of the elderly ladies who formed the last remnants of the cult, Kate gradually builds up a picture of the world she grew up in and comes to understand the exclusion and unhappiness that her mother and uncles experienced as illegitimate children named Glory, Power and Life in the early twentieth century. Fifty years on from the sale of the Agapemone estate, which marked the end for the Abode of Love, there is still the question of what to do about the Ark of the Covenant, the church built by Kate's grandfather in north London and under the roof of which he made his outrageous claim. As in all good stories, the end is never quite the end.
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Kate Barlow was born in Canada and spent her childhood in England. Between 1960 and 1965 she served in the Women's Royal Air Force and later became a newspaper reporter. In 1980, she returned to live in Canada, where she still resides with her family.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Unravelling the Mystery of her Family's Past,
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This review is from: The Abode Of Love: A Memoir (Hardcover)
Kate Barlow is born into a very strange family indeed, but only begins to understand as she gets older how peculiar it is. Growing up in the 1950s in Spaxton, England, on a peaceful estate largely populated by old women, she begins to unravel the mystery of her own family, and finally locates a diary that had been kept almost daily for years. Excerpts from the diary appear at the beginning of each chapter, starting with one from 1948 and ending in one from 1956. During those years Barlow gradually began to discover the extraordinary claim that had been made by her grandfather, who had started out as a Church of England cleric but ended up proclaiming himself the Messiah. This book shows what usually happens to such extraordinary splinter sects as the years pass: they gradually dwindle into obscurity, while using up the considerable financial resources they obtained during the early days. Barlow's book is also instructive about the peculiar position in which someone who claims to be a prophet or Messiah leaves his children and grandchildren: that position is usually a privileged one, but it can also lead to a lifetime of self-deception and emotional pain. Kate Barlow's story, and especially that of her mother, reminded me of the the troubled lives of many of the children of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon (whom I myself once followed, believing him the Messiah) and how some of them turned to drugs or suicide in the aftermath of their father's Messianic claim.
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