Part memoir, part history, part journalistic exposé, Trip is a look at psychedelic drugs, literature, and alienation from one of the twenty-first century's most innovative novelists—The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test for a new generation. A Vintage Original.
While isolating himself to work on his novel Taipei, Tao Lin discovered the prolific work of Terence McKenna—the leading advocate of psychotropic drugs since Timothy Leary. Tao became obsessed with McKenna, whose worldview (and particular theory of drug use) seemed to present an alternate way of being. In Trip, Tao's first ever book-length work of nonfiction, he explores parallels between McKenna's life and his own in a far-reaching search for answers to looming questions: Why do we make art? What is language for? And are there essential, universal truths out there, beyond our limited range of perception?
Trip takes readers on a trip through psychedelic culture,…