The Other Side of Haight: A Novel [Hardcover]

James Fadiman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004

Set during the infamous "summer of love" of the 1960s, THE OTHER SIDE OF HAIGHT is the story of how lives converged in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco for three short but explosive months. A motley crew of dreamers join together in a psychedelic world of drugs, sex, and idealism. As housemates Shadow Dancer and Sweeps innocently come of age and explore all that San Francisco has to offer, a government experiment involving LSD spins out of control. The two stories collide with tragic results, impacting each character in profound ways. Fadiman's intimate, enthralling narrative is rich with historical detail and successfully conjures up a tumultuous time in America's past.  

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Filled with characters so clean and clear I thought of them as friends, forgotten friends, from a long-lost landscape." -Ken Kesey (Yes, THE Ken Kesey) Bestseller Fiction List for Southern California the week of 2/25/01. "A colorful slice of the psychedelic spirit."-Los Angeles Times

About the Author

JAMES FADIMAN, Ph.D., is an adjunct full professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California. His numerous articles have appeared in the Island News, PanGaia, Sufi Magazine, Palo Alto Weekly, and Perspective.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Celestial Arts (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0890879842
• ISBN-13: 978-0890879849
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #512,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 'HAIGHT' PASSES THE ACID TEST, August 6, 2003

By 

Meyrink (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Other Side of Haight: A Novel (Hardcover)

While James Fadiman's appearance in Tom Wolfe's THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST does indeed testify to the fact that Fadiman himself was living at the epicenter of the Sixties counter-cultural maelstrom, such credentials are unnecessary to validate THE OTHER SIDE OF HAIGHT: the novel itself provides sufficent evidence of Fadiman's knowledge and understanding of the scene.

His description of the historic Human Be-In that ushered in 1967 (as well as other historical details), the various counter-cultural and establishment characters he places within the Haight of that year, all have a certain ring of truth it would be difficult to counterfeit.

What is more, neither does Fadiman condescend toward his subject nor romanticize the Haight of '67 and its inhabitants; he simply places the young woman, Shadow Dancer, within that milieu and then allows her to meet others and partake of experiences that one actually would have during that unique place and time.

Surprisingly (considering the various 'Sixties revivals' our popular culture has witnessed in years past), relatively few novels have been written that actually take place within the Sixties counter-culture--even fewer are actually worth reading. THE OTHER SIDE OF HAIGHT is one of them.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Risky Business: Sex, Drugs, the 60's, and the CIA, April 30, 2001

By 

Nada VonTress (On the Page magazine) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Other Side of Haight: A Novel (Hardcover)

The Other Side of Haight is a risky novel. Mr. Fadiman dares to bring idealism, sex, and drugs together in a way devoid of current trends of detached irony or moralizing. The author saves his cynicism for the CIA and a series of absurd and malicious experiments that would be much funnier if they weren't true. Throughout the novel, the humor, playfulness and charm make you almost forget that you're considering philosophical and spiritual questions. Mr. Fadiman skillfully addresses universal ideas of growing up and awakening to the world around you. While the novel is obviously set in San Francisco in the 1960's, the themes and scenes spoke to my college experience just over a decade ago.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When It Was Cool to be Kind, February 7, 2001

By 

Thomas B. Roberts (DeKalb, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Other Side of Haight: A Novel (Hardcover)

Just reading it gets you high --

Jim Fadiman has a fine new 60s novel out. "The Other Side of Haight: A Novel" follows a teenage girl "Shadow" and her friends who live in a house in the Haight. They provide a living sample of the people of that time and place without becoming the politically laden caricatures so common in 60s writings, videos, and movies. Optimistic, naive, caring, crazed, creative, loving, dutiful, experimental, egocentric and ego-transcendent, hopeful and bummerful, and mostly young -- their thoughts, relationships, feelings and adventures give us multiple tastes and varied takes on a complex time when it was cool to be kind.

Set against this is Midnight Climax, a CIA sponsored whorehouse where unsuspecting clients were dosed with LSD. No, this isn't Fadiman's invention, as Congressional Hearings divulged. Dr Langwater, the chief villian, is a beautiful word-drawing of the disregard for humane values and citizens' rights that war-toned policies foster.

Add these two collections of different people to the heady cocktail of the 60s -- Baby Boomers, the Vietnam War, women's equality, civil rights, LBJ and Nixon, rock music dance-concerts, and more -- and "The Other Side of Haight" emerges as a true chronicle of a lost reality, or maybe a lost chronicle of a true reality.

It might help you get in the mood, as it does with me, to focus for a time on the cover photo by Elaine Mayes. After you've put the book down (if you can), and before you start to read again, get lost for an indeterminate amount of time in the cover photo, then flow gently back into the words again.

Hopefully, I look forward to seeing a movie of "The Other Side" someday, and will assign my "Psychedelic Mindview" class to see it as I am recommending the book to them now. It's right up there with "Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" as a novel-form record of the times.

One more thing: Do not smoke the marijuana-printed endpapers. They will not get you high, NOT get you high.

Just reading "The Other Side of Haight" gets you high.