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A review by writesdave
Wild Animus by Rich Shapero
2.0
It didn't suck as bad as some have said but, damn, that was weird. The book follows a disillusioned hippie as he drops a lot of acid and becomes a ram to discover himself. During this constant, LSD-induced fog of "discovery" he writes a manuscript and rejects everything and everyone close to him, including his long-suffering wife, Lindy — and, ultimately, the manuscript itself. He goes to one of the roughest patches of Alaskan wilderness (the Wrangell Mountains) to live among the sheep with which he communes and the wolves that hunt them.
I'm always interested in reading tales of self-discovery — Travels With Charley, Blue Highways, Into the Wild, Catcher in the Rye come immediately to mind. Nonetheless, this was over the top and off the charts strange, though Rich Shapero did his homework by doing the necessary travel. His descriptions are very vivid but at times overwrought, like he's trying to impress us with how colorful he is — or, more likely, with how many drugs he did to induce these images.
I'm always interested in reading tales of self-discovery — Travels With Charley, Blue Highways, Into the Wild, Catcher in the Rye come immediately to mind. Nonetheless, this was over the top and off the charts strange, though Rich Shapero did his homework by doing the necessary travel. His descriptions are very vivid but at times overwrought, like he's trying to impress us with how colorful he is — or, more likely, with how many drugs he did to induce these images.