KEY POINTS:
PRIME GREEN: REMEMBERING THE SIXTIES
By Robert Stone
Harper Collins, $22.99
As a chronicle of the psychedelic 60s this book is fascinating. Stone, the author of seven novels, writes knowingly, if too frequently, of the ingestion of mind-altering substances and gives fascinating insights into friends and acquaintances such as Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady and others prominent in the beat and hippie revolutions.
It is hard to feel much empathy for Stone - his attitude to wife and family seems remarkably cavalier even for the 60s, but he certainly knew interesting people and did interesting things. In Paris, he lived at Shakespeare and Company, the bookshop where impoverished writers earn a bed by stacking shelves. His best friend there subsequently had a famous daughter, Winona Ryder. In Hollywood he was friendly with one of the victims of the Charles Manson murders.
Yes, he's a name-dropper but, after all, he did know those people.
