OUTSIDE LOOKING IN by T.C. Boyle

Imagine a group of Harvard psychology professors and grad students in a big house regularly tripping on LSD in the 1960s when it was legal.  I have nothing against Timothy Leary or psychedelic drugs, for that matter, but my immersion in this novel was not always pleasant.  It focuses on a married couple, Fitz and Joanie, and their teenage son, Corey, who join Leary’s commune-like inner circle.  A grad student himself, Fitz, along with the others, is ostensibly engaging in an experiment to evaluate how LSD might cure mental illness, although none of the participants are technically mentally ill.  However, one might suggest that imprinting on Leary as their beloved leader and tripping in front of their children are not exactly ringing endorsements of their sanity.  These people are the epitome of bad role models, and just when you think they can’t get any more reckless, they give their kids LSD, too.  I am a huge T.C. Boyle fan, but this is not one of my favorites.  My problem is that he does not make LSD seem like all that much fun, while at the same time the characters’ lives all revolve around the drug—and around Leary, whose charisma does not leap off the page.  Part of the attraction that Fitz and Joanie have for this group habitation is financial, as Leary and his rich girlfriend mostly foot the bills.  Leary’s other hangers-on come across as smarmy and insincere.