Owsley and Me: My LSD Family
Rhoney Gissen met Owsley Bear Stanley in Berkeley, California, in 1965. In addition to being a sound engineer for the then-new rock band, the Grateful Dead, Bear made and sold lysergic acid diethylamide, otherwise known as LSD, which, at the time, was completely legal. But it soon wouldn’t be, and when the law changed, Bear became an outlaw, and Rhoney his willing accomplice. Her memoir is a story of love and experimentation. As someone who worked in the labs that produced LSD, Rhoney has firsthand knowledge of the environment surrounding the psychedelic drug in its heyday. Famous people—Timothy Leary, Jerry Garcia, Ravi Shankar, Jimi Hendrix, Ken Kesey—wander in and out of the story, which delivers a vivid, behind-the-scenes look at the 1960s counterculture. A nostalgia trip for many, to be sure, but also an involving love story that chronicles the sometimes turbulent relationship between Rhoney and Owsley. --David Pitt