Reviews of "High on Gold"

New York Times. "High on Gold strides, with commitment and art, into a realm of rewardingly experimental prose, immediacy of real and hallucinatory horror, and even (rarer of rarities) true communication of physical and spirtual euphoria.

     "The author rings every possible variation on his themes, and he does so with an impressive and

varied display of both literary styles and life styles."

Publisher's Weekly

"Lee Richmond's strong

novel of drugs, sex,

and the Revolution

concerns Gerveys,

black,brilliant, a dropout

from society, and his white girl friend Alison. What happens to them makes a convincing record of a generation in revolt."

Library Journal.  "High on Gold is reminiscent of the best of 1950's beatnik fiction -- it is real and it is earnest, and to read it is to live it. Not only that, it's well-written."

Kirkus Reviews. "Full of long druggy conversations that are both bearable and accurate, with the counterpoint of Joshua Aarons, a 19th century forebear who discovered Anahita Island. The novel is highly readable, a sad testament to the death of another American Dream."

St. Louis Post Dispatch. "Richmond's ear for the language is just right. Gerveys comes up to a girl from behind and begins a long yarn about his recent adventures hitchiking across America. In the middle of his story, she turns and says: "'Far out!' Gerveys is appalled by the face of a syphilitic thirteen-year old. 'Say, you got any works? I got some crystal, but I left my works back there. At a lunch counter in Oakland, can you dig it?'"

    "High on Gold is a fine book, and a welcome one."

LA Weekly. "The story of two California dreamers a century apart. First, Joshua Aarons mingles with Mormons and digs for treasure in the Gold Rush. Disheartened by the greed and avarice around him, he retreats to an island called Anahita off the Golden Gate to ponder his mortal existence. One hundred twenty years later, Boston acid-head Gerveys Lecompte, on a quest for gold of a leafier variety, stumbles into Anahita -- "now the mecca of hippiedom" -- only to lose himself "in a fog of dope and disillusionment." Try and imagine James Michener adapting Been Down So Long It Seems Like Up to Me into a romance novel. Then pull a tube and try again."