To a generation in full revolt against any form of authority, "Tune in, turn on, drop out" became a mantra and its popularizer, Dr. Timothy Leary, a guru. In the handsome, charismatic Leary, the youth of the 1960s found someone who promised it all: self-liberation, hedonistic satisfaction, and spiritual fulfillment.
While in Mexico in 1960, Leary, then a lecturer and brilliant psychologist at Harvard, tried magic mushrooms for the first time. He became first intrigued and then obsessed by the effects of the psychedelic drugs. Under the aegis of Aldous Huxley, Leary launched the Harvard Psychadelic Project and transformed himself into a psychadelic messiah.What began as research into human consciousness turned into a mission to alter consciousness itself.
For the next three decades, Leary's life was a roller-coaster ride of glamour and scandal, drug-induced epiphanies, and endless legal problems. After he died in Los Angeles in 1996, his ashes were shot into outer space--his last trip.
In this first major biography of one of the most controversial figures in postwar America, Robert Greenfield immerses the reader in the life and times of a compelling but troubled icon. The supporting cast of characters in this fascinating book reads like a who's who of popular culture in twentieth-century America. At the center of the maelstrom he created everywhere he went is Leary himself: a gifted but self-mythologizing addict of fame and notoriety who seized his moment in the spotlight and refused to let it go.
About the Author :
Robert Greenfield is an award-winning journalist, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and former associate of the London bureau of Rolling Stone. He is also the author of nine books of fiction and nonfiction, including STP: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones, and critically acclaimed biographies of Jerry Garcia, Timothy Leary, and Bill Graham. Robert lives in Carmel, California. Patrick Lawlor has recorded over three hundred audiobooks in just about every genre. He has been an Audie Award finalist several times and has received several AudioFile Earphones Awards. He has won a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, numerous Library Journal and Kirkus starred audio reviews, and multiple Editors' Picks, Top 10, and Year's Best lists. He is the only male audiobook narrator in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. To relax in his spare time, Patrick runs marathons.
Review :
"A veritable who's who of the age of Aquarius and a real page-turner, Greenfield's cornerstone portrait of the acidhead who would be king brilliantly illuminates the paradoxes of the psychedelic age."
-- "Booklist "
"Leary's wild ride is the subject of a hugely entertaining new biography by Robert Greenfield, the first man to take on the myth...[A] genuine page turner, an epic tragedy and a cosmic farce."
-- "LA Weekly"
"Nearly every page is riveting in Timothy Leary, which unfolds like the great novel Sinclair Lewis might have written had he lived to the age of 120...[Greenfield] does a particularly good job of being at once meticulous and brisk."
-- "New York Times Book Review"
