A Separate Reality

Author/Contributor(s):	Marshall, Robert
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Date:	10/01/2006
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

Set in the early 1970s, "A Separate Reality" is the story of Mark Grosfeld, a twelve-year-old growing up in Phoenix with politically active liberal Jewish parents. Mark, who is lonely and unhappy, meets Anna Voigt, a teacher who becomes his mentor. Anna, an ex-hippie poet, encourages Mark to write, and he becomes part of a circle of teenagers who meet at Anna's house to smoke pot and read poetry. She introduces him to the Beats, Zen Buddhism and the popular pseudo-anthropologist, Carlos Castaneda, author of "Journey to Ixtlan. " Mark goes on a semi-comic suburban vision quest, trying to conduct his life according to the teachings he uncovers in the books he finds through Anna -- most significantly, Castaneda's. Mark soon discovers all these books share the belief that through a loss of "self" one can, somehow, transcend reality.
"A Separate Reality" is a novel about the risks and appeal of the desire to be perfect; a portrait of the artist as a young man in the Seventies.