Customer Reviews

Paradise Fever: Growing Up in the Shadow of the New Age

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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.

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.)

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.

By turns hilarious and haunting, this memoir about growing up on the furtherest fringes of the New Age achieves a crazy kind of balance--a tilt-a-whirl balance. It's not a simply an expose of New Age self-absorption and infantilism (though it certainly is that). It's written by someone trying to make sense of his own wacky childhood experience, and trying to capture what was wonderful and not-so-wonderful about his fantastical father. What comes through is the author's basic sanity. The elder Tompkins is completely at home in the subterranean, labyrinthine byways of the occult. The author isn't--for all his drug and alcohol abuse, his feet are planted in this world. What struck me was how his feelings and attitudes and speculations about his father seemed so universal. Improbably, I saw my own, completely average, un-New Age dad in the elder Tompkins. The author gets at the essential mysteriousness of our fathers.

I hadn't heard about this book, but I saw it on a table at the store and liked the weird cover. Now I see by the reviews that other people know how sensational it is. No, sensational is the wrong word. It's an unsensational -- but sensationally funny -- book about a sensational time. It's a book for anyone who has thought, "Wouldn't it have been great to grow up on a commune among really progresive people?" Well, I still wish I had, but now I see how those good, utopian ideals can get all mixed up with self-interest and create something really screwy -- in this case the guy who wrote this book! I can't think of another book that's so affectionate, satirical, and bitter at the same time. Actually, the bitterness swamps the last section, where the guy is all messed up on alcohol and heroin. I'm not sure if I think this part is as successful -- it kind of takes the air out of the proceedings. That said, I think he WANTED to take the air out of the book, to rub your face in all the ugly consequences of "the New Age." I love this book in the way some people said they loved The Ice Storm; it's better than The Ice Storm.

I enjoy and admire Ptolemy Tompkins' writings on Beliefnet (The Winged Life) so I sought additional work by him and this book came up in my searches. What a colorful, loony and challenging childhood he had! It makes a very entertaining story--especially when told by such a fine writer. I can't help but feel compassion for him and his mixed-up family (his parents also had difficult childhoods). I highly recommend this book--and all of Ptolemy's writing. Next I plan to read his latest book, "The Divine Life of Animals."

There was something about the present new-age movement that always bothered me but I couldn't nail what it was; Ptolemy didn't have this problem and he articulates my sentiments perfectly. The final chapter was life-changing for me. eerie. real.

My mother gave me this book. She said it was fascinating... it is more than that. As a parent of young children, I was struck by the carelessness of the authors parents who clearly live for themselves and themselves alone. Using their son to allow their togetherness. It is somewhat shocking to understand that such a young child would be witness to so much adult behavior and not at all shocking that the end result would be alcoholism and heroin addiction. The author is a gifted writer, you are laughing at pages and then stunned at the next turn. I loved this book and hope that the author continues his story.

The Secret Life Of Plants author hs a lot to answer for. The movie version of Tompkins' book inspired a bizarre soundtrack by Stevie Wonder that completely derailed Stevie's career; and now come PARADISE FEVER, which describes what living with Peter Tompkins was like for a lonely, self-absorbed young boy at the dawn of the 1970s. Ptolemy Tompkins knows how to write, and he paints an affectionate portrait of his "stupid" mother--she called herself "stupid" seemingly to prevent anyone else from calling her that, but actually she was smarter than her husband in lots of ways. And even the father comes in for some sympathy. But mostly it was a case of too much, too soon. Peter Tompkins did some brave things in World War II, in Rome, as a spy in exile, and he specialized in garnering factoids from old libraries like the Vatican or the Library of Congress. Soon enough he was leading the complete gonzo lifestyle, investing heavily in new age philosophy and the boon of free love. Betty Vreeland moved in, Ptolemy's mom moved out--though not far, because she ws often needed. Mom and Dad called the little boy "Ptolly," which was bad enough.

Though the book has some interesting things to say about the 1970s, Tompkins lets it get away with him, when it comes to describing how in later life he became addicted to heroin and to booze. Then a great chasm of self-pity yawns, and so, ultimately, does the reader.