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Cover of Another roadside attraction

Another roadside attraction

400 pages

A psychedelic, philosophical road trip through the absurdity of Western civilization and the magic of the counterculture.

What it feels like

Reading this book feels like taking a sun-baked, psychedelic road trip with the smartest, most eccentric philosopher you have ever met. The narrative does not so much march forward as it dances, digresses, and spirals into bizarre, brilliant tangents. It is deeply steeped in the freewheeling atmosphere of the 1960s counterculture, wrapping profound questions about religion, authority, and human freedom in a blanket of absolute absurdity. The prose is the real star here, exuberant, wildly metaphorical, and playful to the point of being acrobatic. It demands a reader who is willing to surrender to its meandering pace and revel in the sheer joy of language. If you love irreverent satire, cosmic wonder, and sentences that break all the rules just to see what happens, this strange and beautiful trip will delight you.

Mood
  • psychedelic
  • sun-baked
  • freewheeling
  • eccentric
Tone
  • irreverent
  • whimsical
  • satirical
  • philosophical
  • playful
Pace
meandering
Themes
rebellion against authority · absurdity of religion · countercultural freedom · magic of the mundane · search for cosmic meaning
The writing
Exuberant, wildly metaphorical, and playful to the point of being acrobatic, packed with bizarre imagery and philosophical tangents.
The arc
The journey spirals from curious amusement through mind-expanding absurdity to a sense of liberated, cosmic wonder.
Who it's for
Readers who love 1960s counterculture, philosophical digressions, and sentences that do linguistic gymnastics.
Content notes
  • drug use
  • sexual content
  • religious irreverence

About the book

What if the Second Coming didn't quite come off as advertised? What if "the Corpse" on display in that funky roadside zoo is really who they say it is--what does that portend for the future western civilization? And what if a young clairvoyant named Amanda reestablishes the flea circus as popular entertainment and fertility worship as the principal religious form of our high-tech age? Another Roadside Attraction answers those questions and a lot more. It tell us, for example, what the sixties were truly all about, not by reporting on the psychedelic decade but by recreating it, from the inside out. In the process, this stunningly original seriocomic thriller is fully capable of simultaneously eating a literary hot dog and eroding the borders of the mind.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Description from Open Library.

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