The Light Years: A Memoir

This was a good read - hard to stay out of this book - good writing about a coming of age in a most interesting time, long gone. Also a good insight into parents who love you or do not love you so much. And that their personal problems and tragedies can preempt a relationship that might have been with a child and would have altered the child's course in life had they been more intact, certainly this one's.Well written memoir, good descriptions of his whereabouts which I enjoyed and some amusing parts too.

Spellbinding, glorious writing, I had to keep reading. As one who grew up mainly on the straight and narrow, it was intensely interesting to see the organic way the author became a drug user, then dealer. Chris Rush is a master of juxtaposition, drawing together seemingly disparate things or events for insight, irony and humor.

Definitely worth reading, The Light Years gave me a "rush" on many levels! As a child of the 50s and college student in the 60s, the people (and places) rang true to my experience(s). I heard Timothy Leary lecture at my university, did my share of dope and struggled with family and sexuality. It's all here! It could've been a star-xtrabetter if generational differences (parent/child) were painted with more neutral brush strokes - the ending being a sublime on example.

I would have given up on this book long before the end if it weren’t the book my book club had chosen for this month’s reading. I really don’t see the appeal of lost people who wander from one high to another, day after day, year after year. The events in the final section of the book might have been an interesting read, but they were skimmed over. The narrative gives me no understanding of why he would have anything to do with his selfish, self-absorbed parents when he was an adult. I see little character development, only drifting through life. I found it hard to care about any of the characters.

This is a quicksilver fine book. Don't be put off because the author is gay. The themes of alienation and spiritual searching are universal. This is a keeper. Very special.

It is always interesting to learn about people who had a childhood very different from my own, and realize how lucky I was. Mr. Rush had a number of traumatizing events in his life, and I am glad he got through them and is with us today.

The Light Years is a stunning, extraordinary and marvelous read, I could not put it down! A devastating portrait of the selfish uncaring parents of affluent America who abandon their children if they seem a bit "different" and how so many of these lost children go on a search for something to believe in or be a part of when their parents' money proves meaningless. Beautiful prose and highly recommended.

Author writes well, but the life lived is hard to wade through, as there doesn't seem to be any redemption for having lived through that hell.

Incredible memoir for beginning to end. It reminded me a bit of Tara Westover's Education as in it's hard to believe there's people out theres who led such extraordinary lives. Read it you wont regret it

Incredible. Couldn’t put it down.