Their tale of triumph in the struggle against parental abuse, drug addiction, and the seductive trap of guru worship is a must read for all Steinbeck fans, as well as anyone who survived the sixties. Nancy Steinbeck, a former therapist who worked with hard-core delinquents and drug addicts, is currently collaborating on a screen adaptation of The Other Side of Eden . The Other Side of Eden has harrowed and elated me, shattered my heart and made me laugh raucously out loud. In John and Nancy Steinbeck's sophisticated and naked company, few extremes of human emotion go unexplored, often with a brutal brilliance that is as purifying as it is terrifying. This is one of the most original memoirs of the twentieth century.
All great memoirs are a clutch of different books marvelously conjured into one.
The Other Side of Eden . is no exception. It is at once an exorcism of family wounds and secrets, an expos of the projections of religious seekers and of the baroque and lethal world of New Age cults and gurus. This poignant unfolding of a great love affair between two wounded, difficult but dogged lovers is also the account of a journey into awakening through the massacre of illusion after illusion, to the awakening that lies on the other side of Eden. Few books risk, or achieve, so much under such blisteringly candid authority. Reading it is as much a rite of passage as a literary experience.