A provocative new novel from bestselling author T.C. Boyle exploring
the first scientific and recreational forays into LSD and its
mind-altering possibilities
In this stirring and insightful novel, T.C. Boyle takes us back to the
1960s and to the early days of a drug whose effects have reverberated
widely throughout our culture: LSD.
In 1943, LSD is synthesized in Basel. Two decades later, a coterie of
grad students at Harvard are gradually drawn into the inner circle of
renowned psychologist and psychedelic drug enthusiast Timothy Leary.
Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology Ph.D. student and his wife, Joanie, become
entranced by the drug's possibilities such that their "research" becomes
less a matter of clinical trials and academic papers and instead turns
into a free-wheeling exploration of mind expansion, group dynamics, and
communal living. With his trademark humor and pathos, Boyle moves us
through the Loneys' initiation at one of Leary's parties to his
notorious summer seminars in Zihuatanejo until the Loneys' eventual
expulsion from Harvard and their introduction to a communal arrangement
of thirty devotees--students, wives, and children--living together in a
sixty-four room mansion and devoting themselves to all kinds of
experimentation and questioning.
Is LSD a belief system? Does it allow you to see God? Can the Loneys'
marriage--or any marriage, for that matter--survive the chaotic and
sometimes orgiastic use of psychedelic drugs? Wry, witty, and wise,
Outside Looking In is an ideal subject for this American master, and
highlights Boyle's acrobatic prose, detailed plots, and big ideas. It's
an utterly engaging and occasionally trippy look at the nature of
reality, identity, and consciousness, as well as our seemingly infinite
capacities for creativity, re-invention, and self-discovery.
