Paradise Fever: Growing Up in the Shadow of the New Age [Paperback]

Ptolemy Tompkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1998

Ptolemy Tompkins is the son of Peter Tompkins, former W.W.II spy, co-author of the cult bestseller The Secret Life of Plants, and one of the most colorful gurus of the '70s' New Age movement. As a boy, Ptolemy was granted the kind of freedoms his schoolmates could only dream of, as he came of age in a home overrun by a bizarre assortment of orgiasts, Yeti-hunters, alchemists, spaceship communicants, and charlatans of every stripe. But paradise can also be hell, as Tompkins proves in these riveting, outrageous, and wildly funny remembrances of life with his chrismatic, over the-top father: an intrepid investigator of things occult and miraculous who invited all manner of weirdness into his household; who, unabashedly and without warning, introduced a second mate into the family circle; and who in 1974, moved to Bimini with Ptolemy in tow to search for the lost continent of Atlantis

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An obsession with states of grace--lost and regained--does not assure a person of finding grace, or happiness. What was it like to grow up as a son of the very avatar of the New Age? Ptolemy Tompkins's father, Peter, author of cult bestseller, The Secret Life of Plants, believed fervently that the fulfillment of lost and magical conditions were within one's grasp.

In the first chapter of Paradise Fever, 13-year-old Ptolemy ponders life from the bottom of the family's swimming pool. His father has equipped him with scuba tank and regulator that may be of use on their upcoming expedition to the Caribbean to locate the lost continent of Atlantis. A naked woman appears above him. That would be Cheryl, a "changeling," one of many seekers of his father's wisdom.

"In resolving to live a fuller, more realized life than he had before," Ptolemy writes, "my father was acting in the service of the spirit of the time--and the spirit of that particular time was very much a communal one. From about 1972 onwards, the Barn (one of Peter's laboratories) became a way station for an extraordinary array of self-styled seekers, finders, and aspiring awakeners of the slumbering modern world. Yeti hunters, psychics, free-form visionaries, and reincarnated Atlantean alchemists--one after another they showed up at our door ... "You might think that, to a child, this would be paradise. But as Ptolemy looks back, a single, disruptive event defines his childhood. One night, Peter brings socialite Betty Vreeland home to dinner, announcing that she will become part of the family unit.

This is a fantastic and informative tour of the occult, the movements it sprang from and in turn inspired, and the shadows that darken paradise. Ptolemy Tompkins's memoir inevitably includes the carving of his father's grandiose dreams down to size. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Lone child Tompkins portrays himself as a dim reflection of his famous, brilliant, charismatic, but difficult father, 1970s guru and cult author Peter Tompkins, whose unique means of self-expression included building numerous gratuitous stairways in their spacious New England "barn" home. Tompkins is surrounded by all the trappings and some of the perils of the Seventies: open marriage, nudity, parapsychology, substance abuse, and the like. Many of his experiences were positive, e.g., he had a close and healthy alliance with his mother, and he was exposed to fascinating ideas and activities, such as scuba diving in Bimini during his father's search for Atlantis. Still, his inevitable confusion ultimately led to alcohol and heroin abuse. Tompkins is now an actor and editor in his own right (e.g., This Tree Grows Out of Hell: Mesoamerica and the Search for the Magical Body, HarperCollins, 1990). Reading like a good novel, his book is evocative of the personalities as well as of the era. Highly recommended.?Janice E. Braun, Mills Coll., Oakland, Cal.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 286 pages
• Publisher: Bard (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380790629
• ISBN-13: 978-0380790623
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,627,320 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ptolemy Tompkins is the author of Paradise Fever (a memoir focusing on the years in the mid-seventies when his father, Secret Life of Plants author Peter Tompkins, became obsessed with finding the lost continent of Atlantis in the waters off Florida), The Beaten Path (an examination of the good and not-so-good things that happen when one takes the teachings of popular modern wisdom authors like Alan Watts and Carlos Castaneda too seriously) and This Tree Grows Out of Hell (a spiritual history of the Maya and Aztec cultures focusing on their disturbing preoccupation with bloodshed). For just under ten years he was an in-house editor at Guideposts and Angels On Earth, and is currently a contributing editor at both magazines. It was while working at Guideposts and Angels that he got the idea for his most recent book, The Divine Life of Animals, which examines the question of whether animals have souls from a perspective inclusive enough that (he hopes) a wide range of readers (that is, not just Christians, not just New Agers, etc) will be able to take its arguments seriously. He writes a monthly column for Beliefnet.com, and is currently working on a book about the afterlife of humans.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top-Speed Tour of a Fractured Childhood Atlantean Dreamscape, December 9, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Paradise Fever: Growing Up in the Shadow of the New Age (Hardcover)

I wasn't sure what sort of book I was looking to read. I entered my interests into BookMatcher--I love Science Fiction and Fantasy, I'm a sucker for Popular Fiction, and anything about Atlantis or inscrutable, patriarchal figures and shark fishing and I'm over the moon. A few seconds waiting while BookMatcher did its thing and BAM, out it types Paradise Fever. Boy, did BookMatcher steer me right. This is a fantastic memoir about growing up in the dark, dank, fetid soul of the New Age. A fantastic read for anyone who has ever gagged on the pungent whiff of pathouli in a crowded natural bakery or suffered through an involunatary chakra reading at a red-meat free dinner party. Tompkins, in retelling the story of his boyhood, captures the inanity and dissolution that passed for culture during the dawn of the New Age. The best memoir of the year, no question.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible Story, December 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Paradise Fever: Growing Up in the Shadow of the New Age (Paperback)

My husband and I rarely like the same books, but we both loved this one--the most amazing story of a childhood like no other. Reading this book is a bit like watching a car wreck; you can't turn away. (That's a compliment, if you can't tell.)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fast and Funny Read, December 14, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Paradise Fever: Growing Up in the Shadow of the New Age (Hardcover)

Hysterically funny yet seriously disturbing. It all seemed cosmically profound and great fun at the time, but those of us enmeshed in the zeitgeist of the 70s can look back now through Ptolemy's eyes and see our sins and selfishness clearly. Fortunately, Ptolemy seems to have recovered from the damage we inflicted on his generation. He has a sublime sense of humor and an attitude of gratitude. The generations before Ptolemy's have made amends and in some cases, they have been accepted.