Trip
Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Part memoir, part history, part journalistic exposé, Trip is a look at psychedelic drugs, literature, and alienation from one of the twenty-first century's most innovative novelists--The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test for a new generation. A Vintage Original.
While reeling from one of the most creative--but at times self-destructive--outpourings of his life, Tao Lin discovered the strange and exciting work of Terence McKenna. McKenna, the leading advocate of psychedelic drugs since Timothy Leary, became for Lin both an obsession and a revitalizing force. In Trip, Lin's first book-length work of nonfiction, he charts his recovery from pharmaceutical drugs, his surprising and positive change in worldview, and his four-year engagement with some of the hardest questions: Why do we make art? Is the world made of language? What happens when we die? And is the imagination more real than the universe?
In exploring these ideas and detailing his experiences with psilocybin, DMT, salvia, and cannabis, Lin takes readers on a trip through nature, his own past, psychedelic culture, and the unknown.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist Lin (Taipei, Shoplifting from American Apparel, etc.) chronicles his experiences with various psychedelic drugs in his first nonfiction book, weaving autobiography, history, and spiritual journey together to pose existential questions. Drawn to psychedelics by the life and work of Terence McKenna, an advocate for psychedelic drugs, Lin begins documenting individual trips on substances like psilocybin and salvia as well as the history of each substance. In detailing his own history of drug use, Lin separates addictive, mood-changing drugs like cocaine and caffeine from mind-altering psychedelics, which he credits with providing the imaginative, profound experiences that have reshaped his lonely, empty worldview into one more routinely populated by awe and magic. The psychedelics Lin zeroes in on are all naturally occurring, and he is best at examining and questioning the illegality and societal suppression of substances that he contends allow him to safely explore topics like time and consciousness. A lengthy epilogue, in which he switches to a third-person narrative, follows Lin to San Francisco on a visit with Kathleen Harrison, McKenna's ex-wife and a strong proponent of psychedelics herself. It's here that Lin's tendency to rattle off precise measurements and scientific terms in quick succession starts to feel a bit long-winded. He eventually steers the epilogue toward a level of personal clarity that perfectly punctuates an introspective work of this depth and caliber.
