Category: Stu’s Reviews

Genre: Book

Grade:  A

Notable People: TC Boyle

Title: Outside Looking In

Review:    Fascinating! One of the great writers of the late 20^th century takes on the origins of the LSD explosion in this country. Set at Harvard in the early 60s, the story follows Fitz, pursuing his PhD in Psychology and living in student poverty with his wife Joanie and young son. …….until, he meets his department colleague Timothy Leary. What follows is an utterly engaging, often trippy look at the nature of reality and consciousness. The group eventually follow Leary, and his partner, Richard Alpert (later to become the amazing Baba Ram Dass, who just passed this week)…with 30 adult and children acolytes participating in the “alleged” scientific study of, first, Psilocybin, and then LSD, as a new treatment for mental illness and trauma. The original scientific experiment becomes one long trip and debauch, as the commune moves from Newton, Mass. (after they are all thrown out of Harvard) to the beaches of central Mexico, and finally to the infamous Millbrook, a 64-room estate in upstate New York -owned by rich socialite devotees of the burgeoning acid tests. Along the way, we run into Alan Ginsburg, Maynard Ferguson and the Merry Pranksters. This is an absolutely memorizing book about the quest for knowledge and exploration that turn into a long running, drug fueled orgy. And, Boyle, who is a master…nails it! In the last scene of the book, Fitz is pleading with Leary to take the “sacrament” , as he feels he is close to seeing God….after vacillating due to Fitz’s clearly deteriorating mental health, Leary gives him the dose…and states….”Fuck God……Let’s get high.”

Genre: Book
Grade: A-
Notable People: Paul Doiron

Title: Stay Hidden
Review: A woman journalist is shot to death by a deer hunter on very remote island off the coast of Maine…..and so it begins. Maine game warden (now Detective Inspector) Mike Bowditch is sent there, on his own, for his very first detective case….and it’s a doozy….Bowditch is about all things “Down East”…and Doiron really knows the terrain. The portrait of this isolated island that time has left behind is potent, imaginative and meticulous. Doiron’s writing is beyond reproach and his character development with Bowditch, and his surrounding folks, has been wonderful. I highly recommend this series from the beginning…great evolution.

Genre: Book
Grade: A-
Notable People: Jeanette Walls

Title: The Glass Castle
Review: Wow…Wow…Wow…this is a very painful book to read…took me a long time as had to read it in short segments. Walls tells her own obviously true story of growing up in the Arizona Desert and the coal mining country of West Virginia in her parents ‘voluntary abject poverty…with what may be the two most subtly neglectful parents I have encountered. Bright, capable….and 100% self-absorbed people, unable and unwilling to care for their four children. The book starts with a three-year-old Walls being badly burned cooking herself hot dogs on a gas stove, standing on a chair to reach…and gets progressively worse from there. I wanted to really beat these two people. If you choose to handle this, the book is exceptionally well written, and full of childhood resilience…..these kids are absolutely amazing….just needed some kind of parent…or maybe not.

Genre: Book

Grade: A-

Notable People: Steve Martin

Title: An Object f Beauty

Review: Yes…this is THE Steve Martin…..who writes the same way he does comedy, acting and banjo playing….in short- satisfying bursts (the chapters in this book are a wonderful- for- bedtime reading 2-5 pages long). In actuality this is the third of his written works I have read, and he is quite the writer…… evocatively descriptive , historically accurate and with an eye for characters and detail. This book centers around Lacey, the object of the narrator’s eternal desire (Clearly Martin himself) who is totally unattainable to another human being, as she pursues her rising star ad manipulate her way in the NYC art world. I was transfixed by this character , and wanted her myself….even while loathing her as one of the most shallow and self-serving people ever articulated …a veritable carnal queen. The book is set in the NY and international art world from the mid-80s through 2010….and frames it all in a dizzying array of detail, while touching on the semantic events of: the 90s economic boom, 9/11 and the 207 collapse of the economy. If you have any interest in the world of art….this is quite the primer. I savored all of this book and looked forward to my daily little chapters. Martin is a genuine artist.