There is still time to pick up a good summer read.
For an interesting story about life in the 1970s try Memoirs of a Drugged-Up, Sex-Crazed Yippie:
Here is a review:
3 of 3 people found the following review
helpful
By Tim
Pouncey on April 22, 2005
Format: Paperback
Kansas in the late 1970's was so different from today; the
Sunflower State might as well have been located in Holland.
Remember what it was like to share drugs with close friends and complete strangers? Remember when casual sex was so casual you didn't even know your partners name? Remember when the political climate of Kansas came down squarely on the side of tolerance? Remember when your personal philosophy of life was defined by rock lyrics and not a mission statement?
You don't?
Well, Steve Otto does.
In his latest semi-fictional novel, Memoirs Of A Drugged-Up, Sex Crazed Yippie (Authorhouse Press/2005), Otto excavates 1970's counterculture like an archeologist loving dusting off a Mastodon tusk. In a brisk 349 pages, Otto gives us a lucid look at a Kansas few people remember --- or can't remember due to a plentiful supply of "controlled substances" that were constantly and cheaply available. Characters romp through Wichita, Lawrence and even Sedalia Missouri when a cheap thrill was worth what you paid for it and pleasure was just the flipside of danger.
But to dismiss this book as just another nostalgic stoner reminiscing about the last days of the counter-culture would be a major mistake. Although there is a certain "back-in-the-day" wistfulness about the time before political correctness was a mantra, Otto tempers his dreamy history lesson with brutal honesty.
The narrator of the story --- a composite of just about every old druggie you ever met --- may graphically describe the bliss of mainlining MDA, he also reminds us that brief moment of pleasure most often occurred in a squalid apartment at broken kitchen table next to sink full of dirty dishes.
Remember what it was like to share drugs with close friends and complete strangers? Remember when casual sex was so casual you didn't even know your partners name? Remember when the political climate of Kansas came down squarely on the side of tolerance? Remember when your personal philosophy of life was defined by rock lyrics and not a mission statement?
You don't?
Well, Steve Otto does.
In his latest semi-fictional novel, Memoirs Of A Drugged-Up, Sex Crazed Yippie (Authorhouse Press/2005), Otto excavates 1970's counterculture like an archeologist loving dusting off a Mastodon tusk. In a brisk 349 pages, Otto gives us a lucid look at a Kansas few people remember --- or can't remember due to a plentiful supply of "controlled substances" that were constantly and cheaply available. Characters romp through Wichita, Lawrence and even Sedalia Missouri when a cheap thrill was worth what you paid for it and pleasure was just the flipside of danger.
But to dismiss this book as just another nostalgic stoner reminiscing about the last days of the counter-culture would be a major mistake. Although there is a certain "back-in-the-day" wistfulness about the time before political correctness was a mantra, Otto tempers his dreamy history lesson with brutal honesty.
The narrator of the story --- a composite of just about every old druggie you ever met --- may graphically describe the bliss of mainlining MDA, he also reminds us that brief moment of pleasure most often occurred in a squalid apartment at broken kitchen table next to sink full of dirty dishes.
For a really good history of the Pol Pot regime see I Am Pol Pot: a
fictional autobiography:
Comments from readers;
·
Anonymous
Posted December 16,
2013
Broken
DUN DUN
DUUUNNNNN!!!!!
·
Anonymous
Posted December 14, 2013
XY
Love it!
Anonymous
Posted December 13,
2013
Frozen_Over
Love it!!!!
Description:
The 1970s brought us the turbulence of the Vietnam War and its
protest by students and youth who where un-willing to fight for a cause that
seemed unsinkable and useless. When President Richard Nixon spread the Vietnam
War to Kampuchea, called Cambodia today he not only caused outrage and protest
at home, including the Kent State Ohio massacres, but he also threw Kampuchea
into a state of civil war. His inept handling of the situation brought about
one of the strangest social experiment of the 20th Century. Pol Pot ruled
through a committee known for the first year only as the Ankar organization.
His name was not even spoken to the Kampuchean people for two years. His
Communist Party of Kampuchea had amassed a powerful movement of disenfranchised
peasants, who were loyal to him and his regime. The Residence of Phnom Penh,
the city's capital, were not so lucky. They were treated with suspicion. And
punishment for those deemed "un-redeemable" was harsh.
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