I enjoyed this book but, i felt it did LSD a disservice.
Quite tense at times, and the jealousy between the main couple was palpable and real.
Solid read though ( )

I seem to have picked up a few of T.C. Boyle's books recently, after not having read anything by him for a number of years. Not really on purpose either, just because they looked interesting.

This one is set at Harvard in the 1960s. Fitz is a graduate student, married with a child and a little older than most of the other grad students in his psych class. Yet still young enough to be as much in the thrall of of his charismatic professor as any of the other students.

Tim is experimenting on the cutting edge of psychology, using LSD, a drug first synthesised in Germany during WWII, to explore the possibilities of the human mind. It is a course requirement that all the students partake and Tim hosts regular Saturday night gatherings for his acolytes. Fitz is initially wary, but wants to remain in the course and does not want to be isolated from Tim.

When he and Joanie join their first gathering, the drug blows both their minds. Everything is better, heightened by LSD.

Before long, what began as clinical trials starts spinning out of control. Tim's core group spends a summer away from the university, living and tripping as a new community in Mexico. Lines and loyalties blur as this enlightened community searches for God and the meaning of existence while on increasingly large doses of hallucinogens.

When their lifestyle experiments lead to expulsion from Harvard, they move into an empty rural mansion to continue their search for enlightenment. But as time goes on, financial considerations, loyalties and the shifting group dynamics make what once seemed like paradise into a living hell.

I kind of enjoyed this book, even though all the characters - and there were a lot of them - really irritated me. It felt very real and exactly what I imagine commune living to be like. There is a reason why I don't live on a commune...

Weirdly, it never occurred to me that the Tim in the book was supposed to be Timothy Leary! Guess I should have read the blurb before I started reading. I might have read him differently if I had figured that out. Although I doubt he would have been any less irritating.

If you're interested in the '60s counterculture, this is a good introduction that doesn't gloss over the downsides of living a perpetually high life. I'd recommend it, but with the caveat that the characters are kind of losers and difficult to like. ( )

Standard treatment of historical figure (Timothy Leary) by Boyle. ( )

I found this to be brilliant and Quintessential T.C. Boyle. The problem? Once again, T.C. Boyle interrupts the positive changes that came out of the 60's Counter-Culture with his disturbing and horrible visions of what had happened to one of the experimenters who collaborated with Timothy Leary. While I do respect his wisdom on the matter and what the 60's gradually led to (the 1970s), his books that focus on this era usually end dystopically without taking into account the many positive changes that the era brought. And there were, in fact, many. Psychedelics, for instance, are now being considered once again as a medication by psychiatrists here and now. They are currently being tested, and these researchers and doctors all realize that they have to be tightly controlled. Boyle has a disturbing view of this that permeates an otherwise a perfect idyll. While the book itself is amazing, a reader may find his end result too disturbing to be worthy of the read. ( )

Spannend! Super ( )