The Faces of Harriet Brown

Throughout her life, Greta Garbo used the alias Harriet Brown when she wanted to remain anonymous.

This novel is loosely based on Garbo's life, from the view of the fictional son that she, to the best of my knowledge, never had, which shows, again to the best of my knowledge, who Garbo truly was, at heart, in spirit.

 

 

My mother gave me away when I was two weeks old. Yes, I was a gift. That's what she later told me: a gift. Of course, I was also the quite unthinkable and the world must not know about me, at least not her world. I had to be hidden from it. I later realized I also had to be hidden from her, the deeper the better.

And given sounds so much better than hidden, don’t you think, she said when we first met. Than unthinkable…But in the end I came to exist for her, and she for me, and that is what counts.

Born in 1928, Nachiketa Krishnamurti is raised in India by his paternal grandmother who teaches him to speak to snakes.  His father, Jiddu, is a well-known mystic who is rarely home.  His mother is never discussed. 

At the age of 23, Jiddu reveals to Nachiketa that his mother is the reclusive Swedish film star, “Harriet Brown”: No one knows, or will ever know.  You have no mother.  Officially.  You know that of course.  You can never tell anyone.  Nachiketa and Harriet do eventually meet and together embark on a decades-long spiritual journey of sporadic meetings, prolonged silences, and extraordinary shared experiences complete with ancient snakes, trolls, and a mysterious white horse.  And the boy who was given away will become the person who knows his mother best.

Home  Stories  Novels  Bookstore  The Craft
Songs  Poems  Links  Search  Happiness