Reviews
Authoritative and highly readable.
A most offbeat and interesting work by an historian well versed in the history of American utopianism.
A remarkable and uniquely American story... The research is exhaustive, and this by itself makes the book an invaluable resource for anyone interested in learning about the day-to-day workings of Synanon.
Rod Janzen has pieced together the first retrospective narrative history of the group, tracing both the trajectory of the organization and the contradictory life of Chuck Dederich, its founding guru... Janzen is a sympathetic observer who faithfully chronicles Dederich's decline into clinically defined bipolar illness and egomania.
Why should we read Janzen's book instead [of other accounts of Synanon]? Because Janzen clearly shows us the mundane ordinariness of Synanon, a utopia without utopian theory or religious or political basis.
Synanon, for all its size and cultural significance, has not previously been the subject of this kind of overview study. Janzen's scholarship is impressive, making use of a vast amount of primary material. The combination of written and oral sources is particularly appropriate.
Book Details
Acknowledgments
1. Synanon and the Image of a Rattlesnakein a Mailbox
2. In the Beginning: A Cure for Drug Addicts
3. The Coming of the Squares
4. Integration and the Game
5. The Synanon School
6
Acknowledgments
1. Synanon and the Image of a Rattlesnakein a Mailbox
2. In the Beginning: A Cure for Drug Addicts
3. The Coming of the Squares
4. Integration and the Game
5. The Synanon School
6. Dopefiends and Squares
7. Communal Art, Re-creation, and a New Religious Identity
8. Violence and Shaved Heads
9. The End of Childbirth and Changing Partners
10. Legal Issues and Materialism
11. A Period of Darkened Light
12. The Final Years
13. Reasons for the Decline
14. Synanon People on the Outside
Appendix: The Synanon Philosophy
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index