The subtitle of SGR is "a novel of the sixties." Before I read the book I wondered why such a vague subtitle. Now I know it's not vague at all: it's exceedingly descriptive. The book is a psychedelic trip through a haze of drugs, sex, alcohol, self-discovery, self-obfuscation, and maturation, including a classic coming-of-age road trip, that reproduces the look and feel of the 60s with uncanny accuracy. Well, duh. Bruce is a poet, and that's an asset of incalculable proportions when you set out to chronicle a time that was so inherently poetic and non-linear. And he's been there. I remember the 60s, but in the words of Elton John, I was just a kid. Streaking, that post-60s teenage pastime, pretty much ended the year I was ready to get in on it. But on reading SGR I enjoyed the trip through a time that I almost was a part of.
     I've known Bruce for a long time, and I'm familiar chiefly through his poetry. I wondered what a novel by a poet would be like. Well, this isn't what I expected. Much of the novel is about poetry, to the extent that it is about anything other than the 60s gestalt itself. But the novel is not one 406 page poem, even though there are a few poems in it. In fact, Bruce skillfully uses the language of poetry to tell a story. That's the job of a novelist, and he's done it very well.
     The book has a protagonist, but it isn't really about David Jacobi, his over-30 divorcée lover Christine Leslie, or the other people he interacts with in California, New York, and points in between. The book is really about the 60s as an experiential phenomenon. David and co. are exemplars of what was happening to millions of young people during those years. Though their struggles, successes, and failures seem authentic, because Bruce has made them so, the purpose they serve is not to reveal to us their personal concerns per se, but rather to illustrate what so many were going through at that time.
     So, if you want to know what the 60s drug culture was like, the only thing better than SGR would be a time machine. Actually, I take that back. SGR would be better than a time machine. If you actually went back to the 60s, you probably wouldn't be able to get into it. If by some miracle of daring, flexibility, and drugs you did insinuate yourself into the times, you might never come back out. Play it safer: read this book. You don't even need to be high.

                ::David C. Kopaska-Merkel::


ProjectPulp.com Customer Reviews

     Reviewer: Anonymous
     Contents: 5
     Overall: 5
     Comments: Great book! A kaliediscopic look at a time of intellectual searching and spiritual experimentation that was as central to the Sixties as drugs and rock & roll.


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