Flashbacks : An Autobiography

With a foreword by William Burroughs, this frenetic autobiography relates the life story of Timothy Leary, one of the key figures of the1960s North American counterculture, and the primary proponent of psychedelia as a way of life. Leary’s controversial views made him a public enemy in the United States, where he was eventually arrested in 1970 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. His escape from prison, and subsequent flight, with the help of the Weathermen, first to Algeria, then to Switzerland, Vienna, Beirut, and finally Kabul, Afghanistan, read like something out of a novel. Other events in Leary’s life were no less dramatic, and he chronicles them in this book openly and energetically. Intriguing cameos of iconic figures are woven into the author’s life history, including one by Cary Grant, whose experiments with lysergic acid are described in detail. Ultimately, Timothy Leary’s memories are as much a record of a singular era in American history as they are one man’s recollections of a struggle against persecution and being ostracized.