The Children of Hamelin

A novel about the fast-lane life in the publishing world, by the award-winning Norman Spinrad. It's fiction... but with a twist... it's autobiographical! A must read for all Spinrad fans. Meet Tom Hollander, an ex-junkie who earns his living as a fee reader at a literary agency—"the big game," as he refers to it. The hook is that Tom's best friends, Ted and Doris, are heavily into therapy and something called The Foundation for Total Consciousness, which Tom, ever manifesting an ex-junkie's cynicism and paranoia, sees as just another scam. The conflicts in Tom's world are personified by his two love interests. Acid-dealing Robin is as free (or as flighty) as her name implies, while Arlene Cooper, hooked on therapy, is as uptight as her name signifies. Spinrad's hippie era is far from bucolic, but it does contain those old standbys: sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, in this case augmented by death. — Publishers Weekly