Claire Hoffman, Author of the Sensational New Book: Sister, Sinner
Claire Hoffman is the author of the memoir Greetings from Utopia Park and a journalist reporting for national magazines on culture, religion, celebrity, business, and more. She was formerly a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone. She is a graduate of the University of California – Santa Cruz, and has an MA in religion from the University of Chicago, an MA in journalism from Columbia University, and and an MFA from New York University. She is assistant professor of journalism at the University of California – Riverside and serves on the boards of the Columbia School of Journalism, ProPublica, the Brooklyn Public Library, and her family foundation, the Goldhirsh Foundation.
Her new book is Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson, which is hitting all the right notes with the most important national critical review journals.
The New York Times listed Sister, Sinner as one of the best new books of the month and had this to say about it:
This vivid biography explores “the dark and demented frenzy of scandal” that surrounded the charismatic Los Angeles evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, whose weekslong disappearance in 1926 helped make her an object of media fascination and “the pioneer of 20th century self-mythologizing.”
For important reviews, visit:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/21/sister-sinner-claire-hoffman-book-review
Ms. Hoffman spent her years as a child and teenager living with her divorced mother in a community of the Transcendental Meditation Movement and attended Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment, an experience which has given her great insight into the motivations and ways of cult followers. Her memoir Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood, was published in 2016 by Harper Collins. It is her story of what it was like to grow up in the midst of followers of the famous Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Claire also has I also wrote this essay for LitHub about Aimee as a part of a movement of modern successful women freaking out in midlife, citing a few fiction favorites from recent years like All Fours and I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness. Additional essays will appear in AirMail and the LA Times.
Claire lives with her family in California.