Outside Looking In

　　故事回到六零年代，迷幻藥充斥在我們的世界，成為流行文化的象徵。一九四三年，迷幻藥LSD出現，二十年後，哈佛大學中有人秘密研究著，熱愛心理藥物的提姆斯(Timothy Leary)、心理學博士學生費茲(Fitz Loney)與他的妻子喬安妮(Joanie)。

　　剛開始三人對迷幻藥的可能性著迷，逐漸地，他們的研究開始偏離臨床藥用或者學術論文發表。他們瘋狂陷入藥物，進入隨心所欲的精神世界、對心理的無邊探索，與思緒活躍的快感之中。

　　直到提姆斯被哈佛開除，他們轉移到墨西哥的研究中心。夫妻倆因此兩地來回，這一切動搖了他們的婚姻關係與家庭──包括他們叛逆的兒子克雷(Corey)。

　　迷幻藥是否真的可以系統分析，帶來幫助？或者它真能在混亂中製造奇蹟嗎？使用迷幻藥，有助於未來的發展嗎？

　　博伊爾(T. C. Boyle)是美國著名的小說家與短篇故事作家。從一九七零年代中期，他便出版多部小說與上百篇短篇，一九八八年榮獲美國著名的福克納文學獎(PEN/Faulkner award)，此外他也是位傑出的教授。

　　博伊爾在本書中探討了迷幻藥(LSD)的誕生與麻痺神經的副作用，諷刺、幽默與智慧，貫穿這部作品，他再次為讀者創造了奇想的世界。現實與迷幻之間，孰是孰非？

　　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.

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

　　About the Author
　　T.C. Boyle has published fourteen novels and ten collections of short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner award in 1988 for his novel World’s End, and the Prix Médicis étranger for The Tortilla Curtain in 1995, as well as the 2014 Henry David Thoreau award for excellence in nature writing. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California and lives in Santa Barbara.