Incubus: l, Fast Friends
Most novels taking place in the Elysian days of the late 1960s — sex, drugs and rock & roll — seem to center around San Francisco, or if not, at least in California. But hippies and anti-war protestors were a national phenomenon. The West Coast did not have a monopoly. These two books (plus Incubus ll, Hippieville), really one long novel, take place in rural-suburban New Hampshire and nearby Boston, where Ben Zacharias takes a crash course in growing up. Did I mention sex, drugs and rock & roll?
Sobering him up a bit is a late night hazed-over sleepover with the wrong girl, slightly shy and her very first time. One more criminal offense will put Ben in prison for quite a while. Reality often has a way of interfering with childhood, but for some people it takes longer than others. Vietnam, unplanned pregnancies, overdosed drug trips, they all take their toll on Ben and his friends.
A novel of considerable character development, to be sure, but also cramped in scope and too narrowly focused to be great literature. It’s nothing if not honest, though, and once begun, it’s tough to put down. If it never happened, it could have!
