The Light Years

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A joyous and defiant coming-of-age memoir set during a turbulent time in American history. Chris Rush, born into a prosperous Roman Catholic family in New Jersey, navigates unspoken tensions within his seemingly perfect home. The summer after his first year at a Catholic boarding school, his older sister Donna introduces him to Valentine, a charismatic figure who introduces him to drugs. At just twelve, Chris takes his first tab of acid, marking the beginning of his journey into the counterculture. After being expelled from school, he heads to Tucson for a major drug deal, disappearing into a world filled with lowlifes, prophets, and fellow wanderers. Throughout his adolescence, he seeks knowledge, the divine, and a sense of belonging in the communes of the West. Confronting heartbreak and violence, his survival seems miraculous. This memoir serves as a prayer for lost friends and an odyssey through extraordinary lives, illustrating the transition from the optimism of the 1960s to the darker realities of the 1970s. In a riveting journey of discovery and reconciliation, Rush ultimately faces his lost childhood and himself.