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	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
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Memoirs

THE TRUE HAPPINESS COMPANY

Veena Dinavahi

How a Girl Like Me Falls for a Cult Like That

In this wrenching, darkly funny memoir, a young Indian American woman's quest for mental health is derailed by a charismatic alternative therapist who pulls her into his Mormon self-help cult.

It is hard for Veena Dinavahi to live while her classmates keep dying. The high-achieving daughter of loving Indian immigrants, she lives in a white American suburb like any other except for its unusually high suicide rate. Veena tries everything to cure her own depression, but nothing works. Then, on one late-night Google search, her mom finds Bob Lyona sixty-year-old man in the backwoods of Georgia who says he can make Veena want to live again. He calls himself "The True Happiness Company" and, as their relationship progresses . . . "Daddy."

As Veena is sucked into his strangely close-knit community, Bob's "suggestions" start to feel less and less optional. Before she knows it, she's a college dropout, a married mother of three, and a Mormon convert who has gotten way too good at dismissing her gut feeling that something is wrong. But when Bob finally pushes her too far, Veena knows she has to cut ties with him. Driven to understand her journey, she re-enrolls in college, studies psychology, and begins to understand that true happiness cannot be one-size-fits-all.

Told with unflinching clarity and shot through with incisive wit, The True Happiness Company is a singular tale of learning to trust your intuition in a world determined to annihilate it.

Veena Dinavahi is an Indian American writer and mother of three. A graduate of Columbia University with a degree in psychology, she has had essays published in The Rumpus, Pulp Magazine, and the Columbia Daily Spectator.

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Book Published 2025-05-20 by Random House Hardcover

Comments

Dinavahi is a ferocious writer with a poetic left-hook. The True Happiness Company relates a courageous and relentless pursuit of the deep human need to be known and loved. Dinavahi deftly uses her story to expose how easily our longing can become leverageand no one is immune. This vital memoir wrestles with the question: 'If our decisions are always borne of a social script, what exactly is free will?

How could an intelligent woman, with robust family support, be sucked into a cult? Dinavahi explores that question in her poignant debut. Dinavahi's conversational tone and clear-eyed sense of her own vulnerability make for a powerful self-portrait. It's equal parts fascinating and edifying.

Dinavahi fully captures the disorienting experience of what it means to abandon trust in oneselfand the deep courage and vulnerability it takes to return. In a society that profits from our anxieties and exploits our loneliness, this remarkable story challenges common notions of normalcy and wellness.

A triumph . . . The True Happiness Company is a riveting exploration of identity and journey to self. Equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming, Dinavahi accomplishes the impossible task of universalizing her singular experience.

Dinavahi has hacked her way through a forest of horrors, and emerged funnier, wiser, and more optimistic than most. I loved this big-hearted debut, and look forward to reading more from her astonishing voice.

Dinavahi has accomplished something spectacular here. She tells a story of joining and leaving a cult without sensationalizing. There is a masterful balance between the minutia of her life, and the underlying forces - mental health, patriarchy, racism - that ruled it. And the voice! Darkly funny and beautifully heartfelt. Fearlessly empathetic yet always unflinching, this is everything a memoir should be. The True Happiness Company is a triumph.

Dinavahi writes with grace and compassion about her complex challenges, showing how happiness can look different for everyone.

Dinavahi is a talented writer with a dark sense of humor. Her intensely vulnerable storytelling vividly illustrates the ways in which society preys on the insecurity of neurodiverse women and, in particular, neurodiverse women of color. A brilliant, personal take on the pernicious power of cults.

Honest, brutal, funny, fascinating. An important reminder of how vital it is to trust ourselves.