Owsley and Me
My LSD Family
Rhoney Gissen Stanley and Tom Davis
Paperback
ISBN 9780983358930
US $15.95
eBook available
April 16, 2013
Owsley and Me is a love story set against the background of the Psychedelic Revolution of the '60s. Owsley "Bear" Stanley met her in Berkeley in 1965, when LSD was still legal and he was the world's largest producer and distributor of LSD. Rhoney Stanley found herself working in an LSD laboratory, and the third corner in a love triangle. We all know the stories from the '60s—but never from the point of view of a woman finding her way through twisted trails of love, jealousy, and paranoia, all the while personally connecting to the most iconic events and people of her time. Bear supported the Grateful Dead in their early years and gave away as much LSD as he sold—millions of hits. He designed and engineered the infamous Wall of Sound system of the early '70s, just before he began his two years in prison, with Rhoney raising their infant son. He died one year ago, but the era he helped create is now being rediscovered by a new generation interested in the meaning of it all.
Rhoney Stanley lived and worked side by side with Owsley Stanley, one of the pioneers of the psychedelic revolution of the sixties. During their time together, he produced 1.25 million doses of LSD. Together, they raised a son, Starfinder. Rhoney is a Columbia University graduate and a practicing holistic orthodontist in Woodstock, New York. This is her first book. Tom Davis was an Emmy Award–winning American writer and comedian. He is best known for being one of the original writers for Saturday Night Live and for his former partnership with Al Franken, as half of the comedy duo "Franken & Davis." His memoir Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL from Someone Who Was There was published in 2010 by Grove Press. Visit the Owsley and Me: My LSD Family website here Owsley and Me: My LSD Family for more information.
“Owsley was a key 1960s figure, who some would say "turned on" a generation more so than even Tim Leary, but his own life has long been shrouded in mystery. Here's a firsthand recollection, as "intimate" as is likely to be penned…Here are firsthand backstage accounts of the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Altamont, and much more … with various Beatles, Stones, San Francisco musicians, of course, and other famed counterculture figures popping in and out.”--Huffington Post
“OWSLEY AND ME is totally geared toward people who have an interest in the music of the time, but also one of the most influential characters of all of drug culture. Think of it as the real BREAKING BAD, just with more peace and love, and a whole lot less guns and dead bodies.”--Bookgasm
“Famous people—Timothy Leary, Jerry Garcia, Ravi Shankar, Jimi Hendrix, Ken Kesey—wander in and out of the story, which delivers a vivid, behind-the-scenes look at the 1960s counterculture. A nostalgia trip for many, to be sure, but also an involving love story that chronicles the sometimes turbulent relationship between Rhoney and Owsley.”--Booklist Vanity Fair – April issue “Hot Type”
“My LSD Family is an oddly sweet-hearted and heartwarming tome, while also bringing back enough memories to hopefully fuel many memories long forgotten on others’ parts.”--Woodstock Times
"Stanley isn't preaching about redemption, salvation, or crawling out of the pits of drug abuse. She's taking us on a tour of her youth and, fortunately for us, the sights and sounds are colorful and vividly described. If you weren't there yourself, after reading this memoir, odds are, you'll wish you had been."-Blogcritics
"In this wild memoir of life with the media-crowned "Acid King," she (Gissen Stanley) captures the perfectionist genius who also transformed audio technology, created jewelry, advocated a carnivorous diet and studied to be a ballet dancer."--High Times Magazine
"Stanley's memoir is an impressionistic kaleidoscope of the tumultuous times that informed the birth of the Haight and the genesis of the Dead, and her reminiscences help us better understand the complex currents that made that era so iconic, powerful, and still misunderstood."--Grateful Dead Archive
"Owsley and Me: My LSD Family” is a heartfelt memoir of the author’s college years and her love affair with Owsley “Bear” Stanley, who was the pre-eminent producer of LSD in the United States in the 1960s."--Poughkeepsie Journal
