Out of Babylon: Ghosts of Grossinger's

About this book

Richard Grossinger an anthropologist by training a cultural rebel by inclination and supposed heir apparent to the great eponymous Catskill resort by birth presents an intense personal story in the form of a "nonfiction novel." Grossinger recounts old dreams lists every college course in which he enrolled and enumerates the courses he taught. Then theres the tarot tai chi and homeopathic studies; the poets and baseball heroes; the shamans and Edgar Cayce; the UFOs and monuments on Mars. He recalls his mean mother and painfully troubled brother as well as multiple fathers and a phalanx of counterculture colleagues. Often it sounds like a transcript from an analysts couch. Still Out of Babylon is a well-written personal story ultimately sad and disquieting because it rings true.