Outside Looking In

by T. C. Boyle, Johnathan McClain (Read by)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982625948
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/09/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

T. C. Boyle is the author of more than a dozen novels, including Drop City, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and World's End, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has also written numerous short-story collections. He lives near Santa Barbara, California.

Johnathan McClain is an American actor, voice-over talent, and Earphones Award-winning narrator. He pursued stage acting in New York for a number of years and has appeared in many television series, including Law & Order: SVU, Medium, Scoundrels, and CSI: Miami. He also has several narration credits, including Lee Child's Jack Reacher series and Jeremy Logan novels by Lincoln Child.

Hometown:

Santa Barbara California

Date of Birth:

December 2, 1948

Place of Birth:

Peekskill, New York

Education:

B.A. in music, State University of New York at Potsdam, 1970; Ph.D. in literature, Iowa University, 1977

Website:

http://www.tcboyle.com/

Editorial Reviews

01/28/2019

Boyle (The Terranauts) returns with a satisfying, if overlong take on Timothy Leary’s LSD studies from the early 1960s. After a brief explanation of LSD’s discovery in a Swiss laboratory in 1943, the novel leaps forward to center on Fitz Loney, a Harvard psychology graduate student, and his wife, Joanie, in 1962. They join Harvard professor Leary’s inner circle of hallucinogenic test subjects and researchers who are working to develop therapeutic methods of employing the drug. To avoid employer interference, Leary relocates his study to Mexico. Fitz and Joanie tag along, frequently trip, and sexually experiment with others, but caught in the middle is the couple’s teenage son, Corey, who gradually isolates himself from his parents. After Harvard fires Leary, he moves his group to an estate in Upstate New York, where Fitz theoretically works on his thesis while Joanie loses faith in the cause; she and Fitz drift apart, and Corey realizes his own rebellious nature. While early chapters set the scene, the real ride begins when the scientific evaluations wane and the characters give themselves over to the drug. Though it takes its time hitting its stride, Boyle’s novel picks up momentum and is an evocative depiction of the early days of LSD. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Spellbinding...Boyle’s latest work of countercultural, biographical fiction will lure his devotees and the newly curious alike.” — Booklist

"He writes with a youthful and sustained energy that parallels the zeal of his dreamers, and that ultimately attenuates their failures. There are few writers who seem more American." — New York Times Book Review

“This is a superbly paced novel that manages to feel simultaneously suspenseful and inevitable.” — Washington Post

“Few novelists have benefited more from the freedom unleashed by the psychedelic revolution than the prolific Boyle, . . . but here he shows a buttoned-down control over his material, a deadpan innocence in the face of seismic changes to come. . . . Boyle evokes a cultural flashpoint with implications that transcend acid flashbacks.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Boyle takes us deep inside the lives of [Timothy] Leary and his convention-bashing acolytes, offering a brisk read that provides much food for thought. Boyle fans will enjoy.” — Library Journal (starred review)

From the Publisher

"He writes with a youthful and sustained energy that parallels the zeal of his dreamers, and that ultimately attenuates their failures. There are few writers who seem more American."

New York Times Book Review

This is a superbly paced novel that manages to feel simultaneously suspenseful and inevitable.

Washington Post

Spellbinding...Boyle’s latest work of countercultural, biographical fiction will lure his devotees and the newly curious alike.

Booklist

Spellbinding...Boyle’s latest work of countercultural, biographical fiction will lure his devotees and the newly curious alike.

Booklist

This is a superbly paced novel that manages to feel simultaneously suspenseful and inevitable.

Washington Post