I am currently reading the non-fiction book, Can’t Find My Way Home, by Martin Torgoff. The book chronicles the emergence of drugs in America during the second half of the 20th century, and details the cultural and societal impact they had on our country. It is a pain-staking and fascinating account, from the rise of marijuana in the jazz clubs and beat circles, to the psychedelic era of LSD and mushrooms during the 1960s, to shooting heroin and downing amphetamines, snorting cocaine in the disco clubs of the 1970s, to the emergence of crack cocaine in inner cities in the 1980s, to the rave culture of the 1990s. Mr. Torgoff uses not only his own experiences with drugs, but other first-person accounts, including Allen Ginsberg, Tim Leary, Wavy Gravy, Oliver Stone, Grace Slick, David Crosby, and many others. While at times the book may seem to glamorize drugs, Mr. Torgoff always seems to counterbalance this aspect with cautionary tales of abuse that become fatal or plying in the drug trade that eventually leads to incarceration and ruin.
While my book tastes tend to run between fiction and non-fiction (because after all, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction), this book has been sitting on my nightstand for a couple years now and I finally decided to pick it up and start plowing through, and I’m glad I did.