Robert W. Norris takes readers on an hallucinogenic trip with his novel Autumn Shadows in August. Norris claims his novel is part homage to authors Malcolm Lowry and Hermann Hesse, who he says influenced his writing, and part mid-life crisis/adventure.
We meet main character David Thompson and his wife Kaori in an astounding and griping prologue that forces the reader to turn the page to see what happens to the couple.
Throughout the novel, Norris keeps the same quick pace and gripping scenes, which plunges into an adventure of telling Thompson’s hopes of rediscovering himself by use of hallucinogens. Thompson is a conscientious objector and an expatriate American teaching English at a Japanese university. He’s suffering from hepatitis C and Kaori is recovering from cancer surgery.
Both feeling the need to be revitalized, they decide to leave Japan and go to Europe. In an attempt to find themselves, Thompson retraces his youth and a journey he took 26 years ago to share his past with his wife while both search for the significance of what they’ve done with their lives. In their travels, Thompson tries to find his German friend Thomas Knorr while Kaori enriches her knowledge and love of the arts.
At the beginning of their journey in Amsterdam, Thompson meets Pablo, the mysterious head shop owner, who gives him a small box containing a small chessboard, figurines, and four mushrooms.mHe recalls Pablo’s advice on life: "Chess is like the game of life. And the pieces of each person’s game are made up of many broken parts, the many selves, of his or her personality." (Pg.13)
Thompson’s psychedelic journey begins before receiving the box, but after consuming the first mushroom, his trip turning into a full blow adventure of the mind. The “mushroom examination of everything” sends Thompson on mind-boggling trips through his past where he defines the stages of his life.
Each mushroom catapults him into a segment of his life and each trip to another region of the world where he examines his surroundings, realizes his innermost purpose, and questions reality. And it’s no wonder. Thompson’s reality was the use of drugs, alcohol, and mushrooms, which made him think he could better focus on his life. Where, in fact, they played tricks with his mind and led him to his next destination. Pablo’s trick? "My focus fixed on the Picasso clown and his checkered outfit, which I now realized was a chessboard on which several pieces were moving about."(pg. 46)
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