Trip

"Lin coherently challenges the sense behind labelling psychedelics as controlled substances…. A kaleidoscopic fever dream of ideas, idolatry, and lots of drugs: uniquely produced and curiously intoxicating.”  -  Kirkus Reviews

While reeling from one of the most creative - but at times self-destructive - outpourings of his life, Tao Lin discovered the strange and exciting work of Terence McKenna. McKenna, the leading advocate of psychedelic drugs since Timothy Leary, became for Lin both an obsession and a revitalizing force. 

In Trip, Lin's first book-length work of nonfiction, he charts his recovery from pharmaceutical drugs, his surprising and positive change in worldview, and his four-year engagement with some of the hardest questions: Why do we make art? Is the world made of language? What happens when we die? And is the imagination more real than the universe? 

“Trip is, if not a guide to self-help, a book about a person trying to be happier, in part by changing the kinds of drugs he uses. . .another theory of psychedelics emerges, which suggests that the most mystical revelations concern earthly themes: birth, death, and the body; family, friends, and love.”  -  Emily Witt, The New Yorker

In exploring these ideas and detailing his experiences with psilocybin, DMT, salvia, and cannabis, Tao Lin takes readers on a trip through nature, his own past, psychedelic culture, and the unknown.