When a young American traveler falls in love with and marries a beautiful Balinese girl, all the promise of “The Morning of the World” seems to await. But twenty years later and far too late, he discovers the awful purpose behind the elaborate Hindu ceremonies arranged by his wife at the birth of their children.
While he struggles to make sense of the destruction of his family, Balinese friends warn of long-term plans, of black magic, of fraudulent documents, false Hindu ceremonies, collusion by members of the Bali community, the courts, the police, public prosecutors—even his own attorneys—in a combination known in Indonesia as a “Law Mafia.”
A few close Balinese friends stand with him, helping guide him through the sekala and niskala—the Balinese visible and invisible worlds—but stakes and tensions continue to rise until he faces a possibly fatal decision: dare he fight for his and his children's identities, or must he accept his friends' increasingly urgent advice to flee with his children ahead of plans for murder?
This memoir of a family racked by unthinkable betrayal lays bare an astonishing truth at the heart of an island the world cherishes as The Last Paradise.
advertisement